A
population pyramid is a graph that tells us about the number of people in the
population and information on how many people are in each age group and how
many belong to each sex (also known as age/sex structure).
Population
pyramids are very informative. For instance, comparing the world population
pyramids for 1950 and 2020 below tells a lot about the socio-demographic changes
over the past few decades.
A comparison of the two indicates that both fertility (births) and mortality (deaths) have fallen globally over the past few decades.
There is a smaller proportion of children now than 60
years ago. This can be attributed to more people using family
planning, women marrying later and having children later, more women
working in formal employment and thus choosing to have fewer children to better
balance family and career.
We also see
that people are living longer – there are more people in the older ages now than
in the 1950 (population aging). The is due to significant medical advances and
people adopting more healthy lifestyles.
A population
pyramid is an important tool for understanding age/sex structure. Age and sex
structure is very important for policy and planning. In the example above, the aging
of the population indicates a need for policies that safeguard the welfare of the
elderly and the need for social infrastructure to care for the elderly such as
provision of long-term social security, training of professional caregivers,
adapting healthcare systems to provide specialized care for the elderly.