Labs / History
Demographic Transition
Every industrializing society passes through the same demographic arc: death rates fall first, birth rates follow, and the age pyramid swells then tips top-heavy. Drag the timeline to scrub Sweden from 1750 onward, or grab the birth & death sliders to sculpt your own pyramid and read off its median age and dependency ratio.
Pop 8.0 MMedian 24 yrDependency 70 %Stage 1 · High stationary
What to try
- In Stage 2, death rates have crashed but births stay high. Why does that gap make the pyramid's base explode outward?
- Scrub Sweden slowly. At what decade does the wide triangle start turning into a column, and what changed first — births or deaths?
- Hit Baby boom and watch the amber bulge climb. How many years until that cohort hits retirement age and swells the dependency ratio?
- Push the birth rate below the death rate. What happens to total population and median age when a country enters Stage 5?
- Compare Stage 1 and Stage 4 at the same total population. Which one has to support more dependents per worker, and why?