21 August 2012

Feeling your age?


When you look around do you generally see people younger or older than yourself? How does that make you feel? How did your ancestors feel when they did the same thing?
Here's a plot of the median age of Canadians (half older, half younger) since 1851. Canada was very young, the median age less than 20 at the start of the period, but notice how the median age increased by 20 years in the 20th century, and the interruptions for the two world wars and the 1918 influenza. (major data source: The Population of Canada (1974) at http://www.cicred.org/Eng/Publications/pdf/c-c7.pdf)

The World median age is now 28.4 (2010 estimate) with 23 mainly European countries having a median age older than Canada's, that's according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age )

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