Median age in United States
The median age in United States is 38.3 years (2024): half the population is older, half younger. That is 7.7 years older than the world median of 30.6, and makes United States the 50th oldest of 193 countries.
Key numbers
United States among its neighbours
In plain language
Line up everyone in United States by age. The person in the middle is 38.3. That is the median: it says nothing about how old the oldest are or how many babies were born last year, only where the midpoint falls.
A median of 38.3 is older than the world's 30.6. For scale, the youngest country here, Central African Republic, has a median of 14.4 and the oldest, Japan, 49.4. Life expectancy at birth in United States is 79.3 years, so a person at the median age has, on a rough reckoning, about 41.0 years ahead of them.
The 2024figure is the UN's medium-variant number; its estimates end in 2023. For a year this close the projection barely differs from an estimate, since everyone counted has already been born.
Questions
- What is the median age in United States?
- 38.3 years in 2024, by the UN World Population Prospects 2024. Half of the people in United States are younger than 38.3 and half are older. The median is not the average age; it is the midpoint, so a handful of very old people do not move it.
- Is United States's population young or old?
- Older than most. United States is 7.7 years above the world median of 30.6, and ranks 50th oldest of the 193 countries here. The youngest country, Central African Republic, has a median of 14.4; the oldest, Japan, 49.4.
- How does United States compare to Cyprus?
- Cyprus has a median age of 38.2, 0.1 years younger than United States. The two sit next to each other in the ranking, at 144th and 143rd youngest.
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