Australia - Age dependency ratio, young (% of working-age population)

The value for Age dependency ratio, young (% of working-age population) in Australia was 29.91 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 49.50 in 1961 and a minimum value of 28.16 in 2010.

Definition: Age dependency ratio, young, is the ratio of younger dependents--people younger than 15--to the working-age population--those ages 15-64. Data are shown as the proportion of dependents per 100 working-age population.

Source: World Bank staff estimates based on age distributions of United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision.

See also:

Year Value
1960 49.31
1961 49.50
1962 49.30
1963 48.84
1964 48.35
1965 47.96
1966 47.63
1967 47.35
1968 47.14
1969 46.93
1970 46.57
1971 46.00
1972 45.42
1973 44.81
1974 44.10
1975 43.24
1976 42.67
1977 41.73
1978 40.64
1979 39.65
1980 38.88
1981 37.86
1982 37.24
1983 36.82
1984 36.35
1985 35.72
1986 35.35
1987 34.73
1988 34.01
1989 33.42
1990 33.04
1991 32.73
1992 32.62
1993 32.62
1994 32.57
1995 32.40
1996 32.27
1997 32.05
1998 31.77
1999 31.50
2000 31.26
2001 30.86
2002 30.48
2003 30.11
2004 29.76
2005 29.44
2006 29.03
2007 28.69
2008 28.45
2009 28.29
2010 28.16
2011 28.27
2012 28.30
2013 28.31
2014 28.37
2015 28.51
2016 28.76
2017 29.09
2018 29.45
2019 29.74
2020 29.91

Development Relevance: Patterns of development in a country are partly determined by the age composition of its population. Different age groups have different impacts on both the environment and on infrastructure needs. Therefore the age structure of a population is useful for analyzing resource use and formulating future policy and planning goals with regards infrastructure and development.

Limitations and Exceptions: Because the five-year age group is the cohort unit and five-year period data are used in the United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects, interpolations to obtain annual data or single age structure may not reflect actual events or age composition. For more information, see the original source.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Dependency ratios capture variations in the proportions of children, elderly people, and working-age people in the population that imply the dependency burden that the working-age population bears in relation to children and the elderly. But dependency ratios show only the age composition of a population, not economic dependency. Some children and elderly people are part of the labor force, and many working-age people are not. Age structure in the World Bank's population estimates is based on the age structure in United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects. For more information, see the original source.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Health Indicators

Sub-Topic: Population