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

The value for Age dependency ratio, young (% of working-age population) in United States was 28.27 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 51.33 in 1961 and a minimum value of 28.27 in 2020.

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 50.99
1961 51.33
1962 51.26
1963 50.88
1964 50.35
1965 49.72
1966 49.03
1967 48.26
1968 47.41
1969 46.47
1970 45.43
1971 44.08
1972 42.79
1973 41.51
1974 40.21
1975 38.91
1976 38.02
1977 37.06
1978 36.09
1979 35.21
1980 34.47
1981 33.88
1982 33.42
1983 33.06
1984 32.80
1985 32.60
1986 32.63
1987 32.69
1988 32.78
1989 32.89
1990 32.99
1991 33.27
1992 33.50
1993 33.67
1994 33.74
1995 33.70
1996 33.74
1997 33.62
1998 33.40
1999 33.15
2000 32.90
2001 32.54
2002 32.27
2003 32.00
2004 31.67
2005 31.26
2006 31.16
2007 30.96
2008 30.69
2009 30.44
2010 30.24
2011 30.01
2012 29.76
2013 29.51
2014 29.28
2015 29.07
2016 28.85
2017 28.69
2018 28.57
2019 28.43
2020 28.27

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