Population's Pyramid Analysis

    A population pyramid is a traditional way of visualizing and explaining the age structure of a society. It is a graph that shows the structure of a society by sex and age at a given time and place. The pyramid we are analyzing shows, accurately, the demographic structure of Finnland with the data given by the Census Bureau of the United States governement in 2012.

    In the vertical axis the age groups are shown, divided in levels of 5 to 5 years. Besides, in the horizontal axis it appears a percentage or number referred to each social group. At the left side men rates are shown and at the right side women rates are shown.

     In the first place, observing the sex ratio we can say that, as it occurs in most of the countries, there are more men born than women, as shown in the 0-4 years group where there are 292 356 men born compared to 270 700 women born, a difference of almost 22 000 boys more than girls. However, the sex ratio matches at the 60-64 age group and from that point on female population is higher than male population. When looking at the top levels of the pyramid (the old dependents), it is quite clear that women have a longer life expectancy. If we look at the data of the Finnish population between 85 and 89 years old, there are nearly 65 000 women more than men at that stage. The reasons for this may be that men and women have different genetics (it is scientifically proved that testosterone, which is only found in men’s organism, shorterns men’s life) and also different lifestyles (men usually have a worse diet and drink more alcohol, as well as women do less physical activity).

     Secondly, with regard to the age structure of the pyramid we can conclude that this is a MEDC, a More Economically Developed Country. In fact, the shape of this pyramid shows that Finnland has just entered in a stationary-contractive stage. In addition, the structure of this pyramid exhibits low birth rates (10.36/1000 inhabitants) and also low death rates (10.32/1000 inhabitants), so, as these rates nearly match, net increase is neutral as well as net migration is neutral too. Besides, the age group with a larger number of people is the working adults group, so we can say that there were more births in this country in the past than now and the result of this is an ageing population.

     However, there are some irregularities in the profile of the pyramid, mainly in the generations of 1948, 1968 and 1998, due to political changes and post war baby booms. The 60-64 interval (year 1948) shows a big bump due to the baby boom after the Second World War that is of 160 000 men and women more than the previous generation (65-69 interval). Also there is a notch in the 1998 generation because of the disintegration of the URSS with which Finnland had a strong political and commercial relationship. As a result of that, this commercial relation disappeared and the country suffered a big crisis that reduced birth rates between 1998-2002.

     As a conclusion, the consequences of this Finnish demographic structure are an ageing population, low birth and death rates (so net increase is almost zero) and a long life expectancy of 79.4 years. Among the measures that should be taken to deal with the demographics of this country we can mention nativity incentives mixed with an increase in the budget of pensions and also in the budget of health care. In spite of the fact that the natality rate in Finn land isn’t low, 1.8 child per women, it should be nearer to 2 child per women in order to ensure that the population stabilizes If this increase in the natality rate don´t occur, we can predict that the demographic evolution of the country will be slightly negative as the death rates would increase due to a high number of old people, so the total population will decrease and the country will enter in a worrying stage 5.