Population pyramid Totally Explained

Everything about Population Pyramid totally explained

A population pyramid, also called age-sex pyramid and age structure diagram, is a graphical illustration that shows the distribution of various age groups in a population (typically that of a country or region of the world), which normally forms the shape of a pyramid. It typically consists of two back-to-back bar graphs, with the population plotted on the X-axis and age on the Y-axis, one showing the number of males and one showing females in a particular population in five-year age groups (also called cohorts). Males are conventionally shown on the left and females on the right, and they may be measured by raw number or as a percentage of the total population.
A great deal of information about the population broken down by age and sex can be read from a population pyramid, and this can shed light on the extent of development and other aspects of the population. A population pyramid also tells the council how many people of each age range live in the area. There tends to be more females than males in the older age groups, due to females' longer life expectancy.

Types of population pyramid

While all countries population pyramids differ, three types have been identified by the fertility and mortality rates of a country. Stationary pyramid - A population pyramid showing an unchanging pattern of fertility and mortality. Expansive pyramid - A population pyramid showing a broad base, indicating a high proportion of children, a rapid rate of population growth, and a low proportion of older people. This wide base indicates a large number of children. A steady upwards narrowing shows that more people die at each higher age band. This type of pyramid indicates a population in which there's a high birth rate, a high death rate and a short life expectancy. This is the typical pattern for less economically developed countries, due to little access to and incentive to use birth control, negative environmental factors (for example, lack of clean water) and poor access to health care. Constrictive pyramid - A population pyramid showing lower numbers or percentages of younger people. The country will have a greying population which means that people are generally older.

Youth bulge

ť See also Baby boom

The expansive case was described as youth bulge by Gary Fuller (1995). Gunnar Heinsohn (2003) argues that an excess in especially young adult male population predictably leads to social unrest, war and terrorism as the "third and fourth sons" that find no prestigious positions in their existing societies rationalize their impetus to compete by religion or political ideology. Heinsohn claims that most historical periods of social unrest lacking external triggers (such as rapid climatic changes or other catastrophic changes of the environment) and most genocides can be readily explained as a result of a built-up youth bulge, including European colonialism, 20th-century fascism, and ongoing conflicts such as that in Darfur and terrorism.
One problem with this line of reasoning is that under conditions prevailing before the introduction of modern medicine, death rates were much higher than they're now and almost all societies had youth bulges, even when their population growth rate was negligible. However, they certainly didn't experience such youth bulge as prevails today in some parts of the world or as prevailed in twentieth century Germany or in Africa and the Middle East nowadays. It's not just that most periods of unrest occurred in societies with youth bulges, but that some of the pre-modern periods of any sort existed in societies with such bulges as well. Nevertheless since the improvement of medicine and its introduction the element of youth bulge has become far more salient than before. Therefore perhaps it can't explain massacres throughout human history, but it can serve as rather plausible theory to explain the terror, social unrest, and uprisings of today.
Another problem is that it ignores the social consequences of poverty, corruption and mass unemployment among young males in developing countries, where most of the world's current population growth is occurring. The "youth bulge" isn't an accurate predictor of social unrest, war and terrorism, because they're the product of far more complicated and interrelated set of factors of which demographics only plays a part. Yet even when there are other factors and circumstance to enable mass unrest, a youth bulge is likely to be one of them.
Youth bulge theory represents one of the most recently developed theories of war and social unrest and has become highly influential on U.S. foreign policy as two major U.S. proponents of the theory, U.S. political scientist Jack Goldstone and U.S. political scientist Gary Fuller, have acted as consultants to the U.S. government. Image:Afghanistan population pyramid 2005.png | Afghanistan shows a classical youth bulge. Image:Angola population pyramid 2005.png | Angola shows the same, even more pronounced. Image:China population pyramid 2005.png | China had an extreme youth bulge until the 1960s, since sharply curbed as an effect of the one-child policy. Image:Uspop.svg | Compare the population pyramid of the USA which was bulging until the 1960s and has steadily slimmed since.

Uses of population pyramids

Population pyramids can be used to find the number of economic dependents being supported in a particular population. Economic dependents are defined as those under 15 (children who are in full time education and therefore unable to work) and those over 65 (those who have the option of being retired). Of course, in some less developed countries children start work well before the age of 15, and in some developed countries it's common to not start work until 18 or 21, and people may work beyond the age of 65, or retire early. Therefore, the definition provides an approximation. In many countries, the government plans the economy in such a way that the working population can support these dependents. Age pyramid has similar uses to population pyramid.
Population pyramids can be used to observe the natural increase, birth, and death rate.

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