Pakistan may struggle to manage its youth bulge

Huge demographic changes are underway in Pakistan which could have a profound impact on the country and wider region.

via Alamy

If you were to ask a hundred people to name the ten countries with the biggest populations, most would probably be able to list China, India and America as the top three. A smaller number might also suggest Indonesia (currently fourth), Brazil (seventh) and Russia (ninth) as well. Yet how many would be able to correctly identify the country with the fifth biggest population? Pakistan.

Pakistan has been making headlines recently due to the latest bloody flare-up in its decades-long confrontation with India. It’s not surprising this has garnered global attention - when two nuclear powers start firing missiles at each other, the world pays attention. Yet, away from the headlines, there are deeper changes in the country’s population that also demand our attention.

Pakistan is undergoing huge demographic changes, which will not only see it soon leapfrog Indonesia and America to become the third most populous state on earth, but could have a profound impact on the country and the wider region.

Today, Pakistan has a population of over 251 million, making it larger than Germany, France, the UK and Austria combined. Its high fertility levels (currently 3.4 children per woman) and improving infant mortality (rates have halved over the last 30 years) also mean that its population is projected to boom over the coming decades.

Between now and 2054, the UN projects that Pakistan’s population will grow by an average of 4.6m a year. That is an increase in population equivalent to the size of the city of Birmingham every three months. Also, as Pakistan’s population growth is being driven from the bottom up (lots more new babies being born each year) rather than by existing people living longer, it will remain a very young country. Currently, the average age is just 20.4 years, and by 2050 it is still forecast to only be 26. To put this in perspective, by then, the average age in China will be 52 while in the UK it will be 42.

Given that, for much of the world, managing the economic and societal problems created by a shrinking and ageing population is one of the key looming challenges, Pakistan should be well placed for the future. All the extra young adults should means millions more workers to turbocharge economic production, and millions more consumers to buy the things they make. And, since the young are typically more entrepreneurial, it could lead to a surge of new businesses being set up, imbuing the whole country with spirit of dynamism.

The reality, however, could be less positive. Of particular concern is that Pakistan is experiencing what demographers call a “youth bulge”. As the name would imply, this is where young adults (typically those aged 15 to 24) make up an outsized proportion of a country’s total population. For Pakistan, 19% of the population are currently in this age bracket (compared to just 11% in the UK), and this is projected to increase further over the coming decades.

Historically, when such youth bulges occur, they have often been associated with periods of political instability and violence. A declassified CIA research paper on the subject points to insurgencies in Sri Lanka in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the emergence of insurgent groups in Peru and unrest in Panama in the 1980s as examples of this in action. Some historians have even argued it was a major factor in the French Revolution.

The problem occurs when the young reach early adulthood, and start looking for jobs, education or to acquire land. When the age cohort is large, it can effectively overwhelm the existing system, leaving many young adults with few opportunities. Unless the government can step in to remedy the situation, the resulting frustration and anger amongst those young adults left behind can easily boil over into major unrest. Given Pakistan’s growing youth bulge and dramatic increase in total population, there is a real worry that a similar dynamic could occur there.

Further complicating the situation is that these demographic trends are taking place against the backdrop of a country that is already struggling with the impact of climate change. Pakistan’s geography means it is especially susceptible to extreme weather events, with huge floods in 2022 killing thousands and destroying or damaging millions of homes. Overall, the think tank Germanwatch ranked it as the most impacted country in its 2025 Climate Risk Index report.

These problems are further compounded by the fact that Pakistan already suffers from weak state institutions. The Fund for Peace think tank recently ranked it 27th on its annual Fragile States Index, worse than Venezuela and Iraq. As such, the government may struggle to effectively deal with the societal and economic strains that its demographic shifts create.

All of which means Pakistan faces a challenging future. The country has an arsenal of nuclear weapons and experts with the knowledge and skills to build more - which could cause chaos if not carefully controlled. It also sits in the middle of an already fraught part of the world, sharing borders with Iran and Afghanistan on one side, and India and China on the other. Any major unrest and disruption could rapidly spread, destabilising the whole region.

None of which is to say that Pakistan is destined to face trouble. Other countries have previously managed to navigate youth bulges and huge growth in their populations without widespread unrest. But the scale of the challenge at hand should not be overlooked.