Age Structures in Mexico and Sweden Age structure refers to the percentage of the population in different age 【1】______Mexico

I want to talk today about the way in which a country’s population is structured into age groups. And in particular, I shall discuss two aspects of age structure--first, different age structures in different countries, and second, the effects of different age structures.
   But first, what do I mean by this term "age structure"? Perhaps these graphs will help. They show the age structures of two countries--Mexico and Sweden. The left-hand side of each graph represents males, and the right-hand side represents females. The horizontal axis indicates the percentage of the population in different age groups. And the vertical axis indicates age. As you can see, Mexico’s age structure is very different from Sweden’s. Mexico’s is shaped like a pyramid, with a very wide base. In Mexico, large families are common; children’s death rates are also very much lower than they used to be, and so the result is a rapidly expanding population.
   In Sweden, on the other hand, the age groups are much more evenly distributed. Sweden’s age structure shows a society that has been industrialized for a long time. A constant birth rate and a low death rate in early and middle age result in this almost rectangular shape that tapers off at the top as people die of old age. In other words, Sweden’s population is stable in size.
   So much for age structures themselves. Now, what about the effects of different age structures? Well, we know that women have children when they are between the ages of about 15 and 45. And it is generally true that the larger the proportion of women of child-bearing age, the faster the population growth. Let’s consider two imaginary countries--Sunnary and Rainland. Both countries have 100,000 people. But as you can see from the age structures, in Sunnary there are 45,000 people between 15 and 45 in other words, about 22,500 women of child-bearing age. But in Rainland, there are 55,000 people between 15 and 45 about 27,500 women of child-bearing age. Suppose, in one year, one in every 10 women has a child, and one in every 10 people over 60 dies. We then have this situation., births in Sunnary are 2,250, compared with 2,750 in Rainland. Deaths in Sunnary are 1000 compared with 500 in Rainland. As a result, the population of Sunuary increases by 1,250. But Rainland’s population increases by 2,250. This situation will not go on forever, of course, because eventually there will by the same proportion of old people in both countries. But by that time, Rainland’s population will be much, much larger. The point I am making, then, is that age structure affects population growth: a country with a larger proportion of people at the bottom of the pyramid will have a higher population growth rate.
   Age structure also has very important economic effects. I’ll mention just three effects as examples. In Mexico, the population between the ages of 15 and 64 makes up 54% of the total population. These 54% are the people able to work and se produce the country’s wealth and standard of living. But in Sweden this 15-64 age group comprises 67%. Yes, 67% of the population. So in Sweden, a larger proportion of the population are of working age.
   A second economic effect of age structures is on education. We can see from the graph that Mexico has roughly double the proportion of children aged 5-14 that Sweden has. It’s clear that a country like Mexico, then, with a larger proportion of children, will have to spend a larger proportion of its national income on education--schools, teachers, books, etc.--to achieve the same educational standards.
   And a third economic effect is that jobs will have to be found for these children when they leave school. This is more difficult for a country with a large proportion of children, se there is likely to be a higher unemployment rate.
   I hope these examples, then, have illustrated what is meant by the term "age structure", and have shown some of the effects of different age structures.