Note on the Trends in the Age Structures of Various Countries

It has been observed by demographers that the age structure of the developed countries has undergone several changes over the years and that the present age structure of many developed countries is markedly different from what it was in the past.

Until almost two hundred years ago, the age structures of various populations of the world did not vary much. All countries had typical pyramid-shaped age structures, representative of high fertility and high mortality.

During the course of the past two hundred years, however, industrially developed populations have experienced substantial changes in their age structures; their populations have become older, that is, the proportion of older persons in the population has markedly increased.

For instance, in I860, the proportions of children under the age of 15 and that of old persons above the age of 64 were 33.25 and 5.2 respectively in Sweden. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the corresponding proportions were 32.5 and 8.4.

In 1970, the proportion of children fewer than 15 decreased to 20.8 and that of old persons above 64 increased to 13.8. Similar changes have taken place in the age structures of the populations of France, England and Wales, the United States, Norway, Russia, Germany, etc.

It may, therefore, be concluded that the populations of these countries have become “older” during the course of 50 to 100 years. Correspondingly, the dependency ratios have undergone changes in these countries and have become lower.

The age structures of the populations of the developing countries, however, have changed only slightly, as is evident from the age data for India presented. In 1921, the proportions of children under 15 and that of old persons of 65 and above were 39.0 and 2.5 respectively.

Even after 50 years, there has been no significant change in these proportions. In fact, the proportion of children under 15 has increased to 42.1 and that of old persons to 2.8. The median age of the Indian population was 21.7 in 1901, 21.6 in 1921, 21.4 in 1951, 19.5 in 1961 and 19.0 in 1971.

It thus becomes clear that, in contrast to the populations in the Western developed countries, which have become “older,” the Indian population has become slightly “younger.”

Two important points emerge out of the above discussion on the levels and trends in the age structures or the age distributions of various populations of the world. The first point is that, at present a substantial difference exists in the age structures of the populations of the different countries of the world.

In general, developing countries have “young” populations, while the developed ones have “old” populations. The second point is that those countries, which are today designated as developed countries, also had younger age structures, when they were in the pre-industrial stage.

This means that the age distributions of the populations of developed countries have undergone changes during the course of their industrial growth and the proportion of children under 15 in these populations has decreased while that of persons of 65 and above has increased, with the result that the population has become “old.”

It must also be reiterated that, during the last two hundred years or so, the age structures of the populations of the developing countries have hardly undergone any significant changes.