Demography
Births, fertility and population in 237 countries. 22 cases where official projections are checked against actual data. A scenario calculator to 2300.
Macroscope
What is actually happening in the world: forecasts against facts
A consolidated picture of what is happening in the world, in numbers with links to primary sources. Every figure sits next to what official agencies forecast for it.
Sections
Economy
Growth, debt, inflation: IMF, central-bank and government forecasts against outcomes.
Industry & energy
Output, electricity, steel: official statistics against physical data.
Politics & security
Democracy indices, armed conflicts, military spending.
What the data show
- UN projection of 2024: in 37 of 47 countries that already report 2024–2025 data, births are below the medium variant; in 11, below the lower bound of the 95% interval.
- Japan: 709k births in 2024 (including children of foreign nationals). Even the latest official projection (IPSS 2023, medium) expected this level only in 2042, 18 years later. An earlier projection (IPSS 2002, medium) expected it in 2045.
- Taiwan: 108k births in 2025. Even the latest official projection (NDC 2024, medium) expected this level only in 2036, 11 years later. An earlier projection (NDC 2016, medium) expected it in 2057.
- China: 7.92M births in 2025. Even the latest official projection (UN WPP 2024, medium) expected this level only in 2050, 25 years later. An earlier projection (UN WPP 2022, medium) expected it in 2054.
- United States: 1.60 children per woman in 2024. The SSA 2015 projection assumed 2.04 for that year, a gap of −22%.
- South Korea: 0.80 children per woman in 2025. Projections made before 2020 expected 1.00–1.38 for 2025, while the 2021 and 2023 projections turned out lower than reality: fertility rose slightly in 2024–2025. Errors go both ways.
- World: 67% of people live in countries with fertility below replacement (2.1), 32% below 1.5. World population is still growing: the UN expects a peak of about 10.3B in 2084.
How it works
- A source for every number. Links go to the primary publication: the statistical office, the UN, the projection archive.
- Forecast against fact. Next to a figure: what official projections expected for it and how far reality departed.
- A scenario is not a forecast. The calculator shows arithmetic on your assumptions and is validated against the UN projection.
- Open data. Every table is available as CSV and JSON to check, recompute and reuse.
- For programs and AI agents. The same data through an API and an MCP server, no page scraping: how to connect.