Demographic Tailwind / Headwind Overlay

The Demographic Overlay

The tailwind — or headwind — under your home market

Demography is the slowest-moving, most certain force a long-horizon owner faces. Pick your home market to see its 2025→2050 old-age-dependency trajectory and a tailwind/headwind score for a multi-decade book. Add up to two peers to compare.

Your home market

Compare with (up to 2)

Old-age dependency = people 65+ per 100 working-age (20–64). A rising ratio means fewer earners supporting more retirees — a structural drag on growth, savings flows and real returns.

Long-horizon demographic score

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Higher is a stronger demographic tailwind; lower is a structural headwind for a multi-decade portfolio.

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2025 ratio

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2050 ratio

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Change to 2050

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Old-age dependency ratio, 2025–2050

Source · —

Methodology & data sources

What this is. A directional overlay, not investment advice. It maps each market's old-age dependency ratio — population 65+ divided by working-age population (20–64) — from 2025 to 2050, and converts the level and trajectory into a single long-horizon tailwind/headwind score.

How the score works. The score (0–100, higher = stronger tailwind) penalises both a high 2025 dependency level and a steep rise to 2050. A young, slowly-ageing market (Gulf, India) scores as a tailwind; a deeply-aged, fast-ageing market (Japan, Korea, Italy) scores as a headwind. The interpretation line flags the dominant driver — level vs. speed of ageing.

Data. Old-age dependency ratios are from the UN World Population Prospects 2024 revision (medium variant), the standard demographic baseline. Values are rounded to whole dependents per 100 working-age. The companion refresh script re-pulls them annually from the UN Data Portal API (old-age dependency ratio indicator) so the seeds update with each WPP release.