Introduction
According to John P. Rafferty, writing for Britannica, “The baby-boom generation was the product of the sudden increase in U.S. births occurring between 1946 and 1964. The increase was largely the result of the renewed confidence and security that followed the economic hardships and uncertainties of the Great Depression and World War II.” Currently members of this generation are 57-75 years old.
Today, Millennials, born between 1980-1996, have taken over as the largest generation and are currently 25-40 years old. In stark contrast to the circumstances of our parents’ generation, news articles are claiming that the decline in birth rates is a crisis. Anecdotally, I know many millennials are split on whether they want to have children or not given a variety of factors best summarized by AOC:
This tweet and article piqued my interest. I was curious to find out more about the shifting demographics in the US and worldwide to get a sense for the scale of this so-called crisis and what it could mean for the future in a post-pandemic world.
Inspiration
This project was primarily inspired by what I learned from reading Fundamentals of Data Visualization by Claus O. Wilke. In the past when I have had to make charts or graphs, I mostly made choices based on personal preference without considering that there are best practices for how basic visualizations should appear. Having a reference for this type of decision making was invaluable as I experimented and reconstructed my perspective. Below are some screenshots from the book that show my general direction for the project.
Materials
To created the visualizations I used Tableau Public, which is free software that allows users to import spreadsheets and create interactive data visualizations for the web such as charts, graphs, etc.
In researching this topic, I came across a number of good data sources from the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. The following are the three data sets I ended up using including their description:
1. Overall population over time – Crude birth rate minus the crude death rate. Represents the portion of population growth (or decline) determined exclusively by births and deaths. It is expressed per 1,000 population annually.
2. Median age of population over time – Age that divides the population in two parts of equal size, that is, there are as many persons with ages above the median as there are with ages below the median. It is expressed as years.
3. Age composition over time – Percentage of Total Population by Broad Age Groups. De facto population as of 1 July of the year indicated. Figures are expressed per 100 total population.
Methods & Process
My first step was to import the first Excel file and create the first graph. I decided to highlight the US trends (red) and include world trends (grey) for context.
The second step was to join the second Excel file and create the median age graph, still filtering out all rows except the US and World.
I tried inputting a chart for dependency ratios, but ultimately did not include in the final because I wasn’t exactly sure what story this chart tells.
Last, I experimented a lot with the population breakdown chart since there was the age group dimension, time dimension, and geographic comparison. I ultimately chose a grouped bar graph by geographic region, and then time.
Results & Analysis
Below is a screenshot of the dashboard I created and the live version can be found here.
In terms of population change, there is definitely a clear downward trend over the past 70 years, not just for the US, but also for the world. In terms of median age, the US has been above the world average over the same time period. Therefore, it is not surprising that when you compare demographics of “dependents” (0-19 & 65+ years old) vs non-dependents (20-64) between 1950 and 2020, the US has a greater decline of younger people and a sharper increase of people in the oldest cohort when compared to the world averages.
As alluded to in the introduction there are a lot of theories about these trends. CBS reported that some experts like Laura Lindberg, who tracks reproductive data for the Guttmacher Institute, believes “the decrease in births could be a sign of progress — a marker of women’s equality and freedom of choice.”
Alternatively, University of Southern California Professor Dowell Myers, who studies demographic trends, worries that the trend could also be a “barometer of despair”:
“The cost of housing, the cost of education, all these things have become more and more difficult. I think the boomers themselves don’t realize how much harder it is for millennials today. And they think, ‘Oh yeah, when we were young we had to live, you know, on very little money, and we made do, and you can do the same.’ That’s the story, right? Well no, it really is a lot harder for young people today. It’s amazing how much harder it is.”
–Professor Dowell Myers
Reflection
The data sets that I chose were quite large and I had to filter out much of the information to focus on the US vs. the worldwide trends since I’m less familiar with factors influencing birth rates and demographics in other countries. Also, since my data was in three Excel files, I was glad I was able to learn how to join tables with shared columns so that all visualizations could appear on one dashboard. However, the join process did take some trial and error. My final dashboard is pretty simple, but I think it conveys the trends that have been reported in a way that is more objective than some of the sensationalized headlines.
In terms of future direction for the project, the UN has many more related data sets that I considered working with, but ultimately didn’t feel qualified to include such as data on dependency ratios, birth rates, and net reproduction rates. If included, the analysis could provide more insight into the intersection of declining birth rates and shifting demographics. Also it could be interesting to correlate these changes against other factors such as income, debt, housing costs, healthcare, etc. that have been mentioned throughout this report, to investigate which factors have the greatest influence on these trends.
Sources
https://annehelen.substack.com/p/other-countries-have-social-safety
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56288038
Rafferty, John P. “America’s Boomer Generation.” https://www.britannica.com/story/americas-boomer-generation
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/birth-rate-declining-younger-generations-crisis/
https://gen.medium.com/parents-are-not-ok-66ab2a3e42d9
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covid-19-baby-bust-is-here-11614853803
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects 2019, Online Edition. Rev. 1. https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Fertility/
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects 2019, Online Edition. Rev. 1. https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Population/
Wilke, Claus O. Fundamentals of Data Visualization. https://clauswilke.com/dataviz/directory-of-visualizations.html