First Thing’s First: Apologies
My apologies for failing to post for a few days. If you noticed, I’m flattered. I had some deadlines and limited access to the internet late last week. Unfortunately, March is a very busy month and I will likely have this problem again before the month is out. I’ll try to make up for it when I can.
What Works
I have always been a fan of the population by gender and age chart, even in the static form that you see before clicking through above. It is quite an achievement to clearly represent three different variables on a two dimensional graph. It helps immensely that gender here is a binary value. If it were tertiary or tertiary plus, this strategy would fall apart. Once you click through, you’ll see that the animation adds yet another variable, time. And time is a real kicker here. You can see how China’s population goes from having many young people and few old people to 2050 where the largest category is between 60 and 64 years old. Great way to take an old graphic technique – the static version – and animating it.
(I would love seeing this thing as population by age sticking married people on one side and unmarried people on the other as an animation.)
What Needs Work
The colors and overall treatment of the graphic as a designerly element. Red and orange makes it look a little like it’s yelling ‘Caution! Proceed at your own risk!” the whole time. But then, I guess we all have to worry about what is going to happen when the population pyramid becomes a slender pillar with an ionic capital.
Relevant Resources
United Nations (1999): World Population Prospects. The 1998 Revision. New York. Link to animation. [graphic credit to Heilig, G. 1999]
Comments 3
mike3550 — March 2, 2009
It's funny, I tend to always associate population pyramids with red and blue. I don't know if it is the intro demography that I learned from or some other association. But, of course, blue and red have gender connotations that might make red and orange better.
Black Moon — August 21, 2009
In 2010 or very soon any way, China will probably go to war because they can afford losing a lot of soldier between the age of 20 to 49 and it will actually be good for their economy in the long run. It will in 10 to 20 years rebalance their pyramid.