The World's "Youngest" Countries
With worldwide birth-rates declining and average human ages and life expectancies increasing, what are the world's youngest countries? Above is a visualization based on 2012 data on each country's population percentage that falls between 0-14 years old. The United States has 19.6% of the population between 0-14 years old. On the highest end of the spectrum are Central African countries like Niger, Chad, and Angola with 50%, 48.5% and 47.5% of their populations falling into the 0-14 year old category. Do less developed countries' populations have higher percentages of children? This visualization seems to suggest so. Specifically in Africa, is this phenomenon due to high birthrates, lower overall life expectancy, or both? Below, you can see the corresponding visual for each country's birthrate that same year.
These phenomenon seem inextricably and obviously linked. Higher birthrate means higher population of children. This visual seems to help prove that the two fields are related but not much else is gained here. Finally, we can see the average life expectancy for each country below:
This information seems to support our previous thesis that a combination of high birthrate and low average life expectancy are behind the large percentage of children in these countries. What are the forward implications of these statistics? Growing and shrinking populations for Central Africa and the USA respectively? Time will certainly tell.
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