According to the latest World Bank data, Nigeria had a population of 168,833,776 in 2012, compared with a population of 313,914,040 in the United States.

In 30 years, the world will likely look very different.

“Secular population trends still favour Emerging Markets, as working population growth in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa will easily outpace growth in the West,” says BofA Merrill Lynch chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett. “Demographic trends in Africa are of particular note with the population of Nigeria set to overtake that of Indonesia’s by 2034, and the US population in 2045.”

Labour force demographics also arguably favour emerging markets vis-a-vis the West.

The charts below from ISI show forecasts for how the labour forces in both the emerging and the developed world are likely to evolve.

“The more developed country total labour force will soon begin to shrink at an accelerating rate for many albeit not all developed countries,” writes ISI lead analyst and head of global demographics research Dick Hokenson in a recent report. “This implies slower real GDP growth unless productivity increases at a faster rate.”

“Although the less developed country total labour force will essentially comprise all of the net growth in the world’s labour force,” says Hokenson, “the rate of increase slows from 1.86% per year from 2000-2010 to 1.43% per year this decade.”

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