age distribution

age distribution, in population studies, the proportionate numbers of persons in successive age categories in a given population. Age distributions differ among countries mainly because of differences in the levels and trends of fertility. A population with persistently high fertility, for instance, has a large proportion of children and a small proportion of aged persons. A population, such as that of France, in which fertility has been low for a long time, has a smaller proportion of children and a larger proportion of aged persons. Changes in fertility have an immediate effect on numbers of children, but many years must pass before the change affects the numbers above childhood. Thus, a population that has experienced a recent decline in fertility tends to have relatively small numbers both of children and of aged persons and a large proportion of adults in the middle ages.

Age distributions have also been influenced in varying ways by migrations, war losses, and differences in mortality—though these effects are generally less important than the influence of variations in fertility. Yet the migration of young adults, who bring children with them or soon have children in the area to which they move, is likely to swell the number both of adults in the middle ages and of children in the receiving country, while the proportion of aged persons remains low—with reverse effects on the population of an area from which there is a large net out movement.