NationStates

(I made sure to search the forums and verify whether this had been proposed before. I couldn't find any previous examples.)

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Idea

Thinking of about population issues led me to consider the possibilities of establishing actual population pyramids for each nation. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, "a population pyramid, also called an 'age pyramid' is a graphical illustration that shows the distribution of various age groups in a population, which forms the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing." (Wikipedia)

Visually it looks something like this.

Population pyramid of Egypt, the land of pyramids.

Much like we currently present information leading causes of death, this population pyramid could show how old/young/diverse a population is.

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Recycling existing data

At the present, we already possess much of the data required for constructing this.

1. Easiest to start with is Lifespan (censusid=44),
   
2. which can be combined with the Human Development Index (censusid=68),
   
3. and to a lesser extent perhaps also the Death Rate (censusid=5).

Lifespan (#1) would give an estimate for the top of the pyramid. This doesn't mean no-one grows older. The calculation of life expectancy is a little more complex than that. I would appreciate any expert advice you as reader might have. The image I posted above shows a scale of 5 years at a time. This could also be grouped per decade.

100+
90-99
80-89
70-79
60-69
50-59
40-49
30-39
20-29
10-19
0-9

HDI (#2) would help us divide nations into categories. IRL there exist 4 categories of HDI, namely: very high, high, medium, and low. Based on these categories, it should be possible to construct an average population pyramid for each nation.

Questions still to answer:

1. Ratio of men vs women
2. Child mortaility rate
3. Which other factors might influence the pyramid?

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Mockup

A final result could look something like this. I re-used one of the existing images that's currently used as a background for the government welfare budget. https://www.nationstates.net/images/charts/govt-wel.jpg I also re-used some of the colours already used in the population pie chart, namely #3c6eab for men and #b33e37 for women. The icon was found online, at The Noun Project. https://thenounproject.com/term/population/152684/

No comments on the viability, but this is definitely a cool, well put together idea.

Ransium wrote:No comments on the viability, but this is definitely a cool, well put together idea.

Thank you kindly for those encouraging words, Sir Moderator. Meanwhile, I took some time to create a mockup of what the final design might look like.

For all it is worth, I think this would be a rather nice feature to add into the game. I have always wondered what my median age is, and how broken my population demographics are.

I actually quite like the idea.

Might want to have 110+ given there are nations that have broken 100 as their average life expectancy.

I love the idea. I think gender equality would have to be a factor though, no? Access to contraception too.

Hmm.

You did a great presentation of this, so kudos to you for that, but I’m not sure I like this idea so much. There isn’t a whole lot of statistical calculation of this, besides just lifespan. Not that that couldn’t change, of course.

It would be interesting if it also included other stats, like fertility rate and replacement fertility rate. That could get complicated, though.

OP, I think you won me over.

I think this is an excellent idea. I'm not sure why it needs to be in it's own page rather then beside the cause of death chart.

As for.

Orioni 2 wrote:

1. Ratio of men vs women
2. Child mortaility rate
3. Which other factors might influence the pyramid?

Ideally I think would be dependent on what the common causes of death are, and what a nation's policies towards gender and age in that area are. For example a nation that had lots of workplace deaths would have higher mortality for men(unless it had an all female workforce). I can't think of any causes of death that nationstates tracks that would disproportionately affect woman though.

Orioni 2 wrote:

1. Ratio of men vs women
2. Child mortaility rate
3. Which other factors might influence the pyramid?

One thing to consider with this is that a population pyramid is a sort of histogram - fertility determines the input at the bottom of the pyramid, then each input gradually moves up the pyramid, shrinking according to how death is distributed across the population. The bottom of the pyramid is the easiest to figure out. But the thing is, your birth rate can both increase and decrease, so it is possible that the youngest age-range could have a smaller population than older age-ranges. In other words, this graph has to indicate changes over time - time either being in terms of updates or number of issues answered, as the choices you make will affect how each age-range proceeds.

There are so many causes of death, and they have different affects on different age groups. For example, warfare will usually kill lots of men in their 20's and 30's, but if a nation has a women-only military (there is an issue that does that) then it will instead kill lots of women in their 20's and 30's.

Some stats that could influence the death rate of different parts of the population:

Crime - Adult men are most affected by murder.
Economy - A bad economy is prone to shortages, which can result in general starvation, which is more serious for children and the elderly.
Happiness - Happy people live longer. This would affect the elderly population most.
Industry - Dangerous work is a major cause of death among men.
Pacifism/Defense Forces - Aggressive nations kill off their 20's and 30's population quicker, but nations with few defense forces are generally less safe than others.
Public Healthcare/Scientific Advancement - Public healthcare is a plus for women and the elderly, but it needs to be backed up with the right technology to be effective. Lack of these things can hurt children, women, and the elderly.
Safety - accidents affect everyone, but disproportionately affect children, who are less aware of the dangers.
Youth Rebelliousness - Adolescents die more often doing stupid things.

Thing is, this stuff can change in a feminist society

And for different sapient species...

It is a very cool idea, and a very well put together proposal. However, here nations' populations grow with the activity of the players independent of NS stats like fertility and death rate. I'm sure there's some equation that could depict a nation's growth rate with this in mind, though it may be rather complex and slightly wonky; a backwater nation with extremely high death rate that has been highly active over a long period of time would still manage to produce a large population despite stats that would limit such growth IRL.

Liddell Hart wrote:It is a very cool idea, and a very well put together proposal. However, here nations' populations grow with the activity of the players independent of NS stats like fertility and death rate. I'm sure there's some equation that could depict a nation's growth rate with this in mind, though it may be rather complex and slightly wonky; a backwater nation with extremely high death rate that has been highly active over a long period of time would still manage to produce a large population despite stats that would limit such growth IRL.

That would still work under this system, you would just have almost all the population lower on the pyramid because people die young. Presumably in those nations birth rates are a lot higher to make up for the high death rate.

Liddell Hart wrote:It is a very cool idea, and a very well put together proposal. However, here nations' populations grow with the activity of the players independent of NS stats like fertility and death rate. I'm sure there's some equation that could depict a nation's growth rate with this in mind, though it may be rather complex and slightly wonky; a backwater nation with extremely high death rate that has been highly active over a long period of time would still manage to produce a large population despite stats that would limit such growth IRL.

I think the expectation is that the chart would be a bunch of proportions that are based on the total population. This doesn't have to be accurate, but it will be interesting to know which sexes and age groups make up the most of your society.

Bears Armed wrote:And for different sapient species...

And sentient machines - don't forget them! This is NS, after all: men (blue), women (red), AI (grey), [national animal] (yellow), zombie (green) - am I missing any?

Galiantus III wrote:

Bears Armed wrote:And for different sapient species...

And sentient machines - don't forget them! This is NS, after all: men (blue), women (red), AI (grey), [national animal] (yellow), zombie (green) - am I missing any?

You forgot a lime green for sentient nukes.

EDIT: srsly, though, the OP has a great idea and I'd love to see it.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Leutria wrote:

Liddell Hart wrote:It is a very cool idea, and a very well put together proposal. However, here nations' populations grow with the activity of the players independent of NS stats like fertility and death rate. I'm sure there's some equation that could depict a nation's growth rate with this in mind, though it may be rather complex and slightly wonky; a backwater nation with extremely high death rate that has been highly active over a long period of time would still manage to produce a large population despite stats that would limit such growth IRL.

That would still work under this system, you would just have almost all the population lower on the pyramid because people die young. Presumably in those nations birth rates are a lot higher to make up for the high death rate.

It would still work for sure, but it'd still be wonky. There are issue options and national policies that should, in theory, affect birth rates, such as contraception bans, lowering age of consent, all-female military, etc. These just wouldn't really be reflected in the calculated birth rate as it is wholly dependent on nation age and activity.

Honestly though, I'm in favor of the idea. I don't believe NS stats are anything to take too seriously. They're a fun way to see how absurd our nations are, and this would be a cool feature.

I’d love to see this implemented. More data about your nation gives you more to work off of when RPing (with NStats)

One month into this proposal, is there a way to push this forward? I see a lot of senior member sharing feedback and ideas. This is very welcome. From a technical point of view, is there a process to put this on the dev schedule? (I'm aware that right now the scores rejiggering is in beta and probably requires more attention.)

I like the idea! Other than the Health and Lifespan stats, this could actually give you more idea on the country's demographics - like how long do the people live into, the amount of kids that they have, and so on.

Wow, that's really great. Amazing work! I didn't notice this thread the first time around but will look into how we might be able to do it.

Thanks for the contribution!