Population profiles

Look out! An iceberg! Oh, that's not an iceberg... that's a population pyramid. Do you remember the population pyramid?

Or as it is also called: population profile. It shows how age... and gender... are distributed in a population. The population pyramid offers a picture of what a population looks like at a certain point in time: a snapshot.

But it also says something about how a population has developed over time. Imagine following a person from her first years at the bottom of the pyramid... As she grows, becomes a teenager... And an adult. Every year some people die in each age-group.

So as time goes on, there are fewer people of this person's age. As time passes, new generations fill up from below. Our person eventually gets old... and dies, too. And just as with an iceberg, it's interesting to find out what is under the surface, because it tells us something about how this population might change in the future.

One clue about what's going on is shown by the shape of the population pyramid: what its profile looks like. This population profile shows the population in a poor country: Afghanistan. A large section of the population here is made up of children and youths. The base is wide. Quite a lot of children are born in Afghanistan.

More than four for each woman. So each generation is larger than the one before. When a population is growing, we get a pyramid shaped profile, with a broad base and a narrow point at the top. But, development doesn't have to continue like this. If the situation for the population in Afghanistan improves, then fewer will die at a young age.

And when people are better off they almost always give birth to fewer children. Then, Afghanistan's population profile will look more like that of Mexico. Here, the base is wider than the rest of the pyramid: a lot of children have been born, but their number isn't increasing anymore. And there are not as many who die at a young age either. And, when a country has been rich and its population has been healthy for an even longer period of time, then their population profile looks more like that of the United States.

Here, the profile is almost completely straight. It is only the very top that looks like a pyramid. Most people in this population can expect a long life and get quite far up in the pyramid. And the number of children that are being born is decreasing a bit. If it was not for immigration the US population would have been decreasing.

As it does in Japan. Here, from Japan's population profile, we can see that the base narrows considerably. In Japan few babies are born, and many people live to an old age: the top part is even wider than the base. You can also see that there are many more women than men who grow really old. These four population profiles are quite typical for populations in different developmental phases.

Those looking like a pyramid, with a narrow pointed top and wide base are typical for poor countries with large families, and where a lot of people die quite young. The second profile, with a wide base is typical for a country where people have started to be better off, live longer lives and give birth to fewer children. Next, the profile that looks more like a tower than a pyramid, is typical for countries that have been rich and healthy for a long time. Few die before they get old, and families have on average two children. The last profile is typical for countries where the population gets really old and where few children are born.

When the proportion of older people increases, we say that a country has an aging population. A population pyramid says quite a lot about a population: What it looks like today, and how the people who are alive today will change the population profile as they grow older. And, if we know something about how the economy and health are developing in the country, we can also get a feeling for what is under the surface. Because, just as with icebergs, you see only one part of it, if you only look above the surface.