Population
How many men and women are in the world?
The UN projects about 4.17 billion males and 4.13 billion females worldwide on 1 July 2026. These totals include boys and girls, not just adult men and women.
| UN category | People, approximately | World share |
|---|---|---|
| Male | 4,171,513,000 | 50.26% |
| Female | 4,129,166,000 | 49.74% |
World · 1 July 2026 · UN WPP 2024 medium projection. Rounded for readability; not a live census.
What do these categories cover?
The source classifies population by sex as male and female. Both totals include all ages: infants, children and adults. They are not counts of adults alone, and this two-category table is not a measure of gender identity.
How the comparison is calculated
Each count is taken directly from the UN World row for 2026. The percentage is that count divided by the same dated total population. Counts shown above are rounded to the nearest thousand and shares to two decimal places; source rounding can make sums differ slightly.
These are medium-variant projections from the 2024 revision. They stay fixed to their reference date and do not tick like the live world-population estimate.
Sources and reference date
United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, World (location 900), Medium variant, 2026. Total and male/female population on 1 July, all ages. Source counts in thousands are converted to people. Percentages use the same dated world total of 8,300,678,395; they do not use the moving homepage counter.
- Original UN demographic indicators workbook — World, 2026, Medium variant
- UN methodology
- UN data licence: CC BY 3.0 IGO