“In contrast to the 150 percent expansion of the population aged 65 and over in the next 35 years, the youth population (under age 20) is projected to remain almost flat, 2.5 billion in 2015 and 2.6 billion in 2050,” the report says.

Sometime in the next four years the global population of human beings who are 65 and older will surpass those under 5 for the first time, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

“For the first time in human history, people aged 65 and older will outnumber children under age 5,” says the report, entitled “An Aging World: 2015.”

“This crossing is just around the corner, before 2020,” says the report.

“These two age groups will then continue to grow in opposite directions,” it says. “By 2050, the proportion of the population 65 and older (15.6 percent) will be more than double that of children under age 5 (7.2 percent).

“This unique demographic phenomenon of the ‘crossing’ is unprecedented,” says the Census Bureau.

The Census Bureau report included a ranking of “The World’s 25 Oldest Countries and Areas” in 2015 based on the percentage of the country’s population that was 65 or older.

While Japan ranked as the oldest country, the other 24 in the top 25 included 22 European countries, plus Canada and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

The world’s youngest countries were in the Persian Gulf.

“The percentage of the population aged 65 and over in 2015 ranked from a high of 26.6 percent for Japan to a low of around 1 percent for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates,” said the report.

“Of the world’s 25 oldest countries and areas in 2015, 22 are in Europe, with Germany or Italy leading the ranks of European countries for many years, including currently.”

After Japan, with 26.6 percent of its population 65 or older, Germany ranked No. 2 with 21.5 percent of its population 65 or older. Italy ranked No. 3 with 21.2 percent of its population 65 or older; and Greece ranked No. 4 with 20.5 percent of its population 25 or older.

The Census Bureau report estimates that between now and 2050, the population that is 65 and older will more than double while the population under 20 years of age see almost no growth.

At the same time, those in what the report calls “the working age population”—people who are 20 to 64 years of age—will increase by only 25.6 percent.

“Among the 7.3 billion people worldwide in 2015, an estimated 8.5 percent, or 617.1 million, are aged 65 and older,” says the report. “The number of older people is projected to increase more than 60 percent in just 15 years—in 2030, there will be about 1 billion older people globally, equivalent to 12.0 percent of the total population.

“The share of older population will continue to grow in the following 20 years—by 2050, there will be 1.6 billion older people worldwide, representing 16.7 percent of the total world population of 9.4 billion,” says the report. “This is equivalent to an average annual increase of 27.1 million older people from 2015 to 2050.

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