Population Estimates
UK population grows to 61.4 million
Population: by gender and age, mid-2008
The estimated resident population of the UK was 61,383,000 in mid-2008, up by 408,000 on the previous year. Children aged under 16 represented around one in five of the total population, around the same proportion as those of retirement age. In mid-2008 the average age of the population was 39 years, up from 37 in 1998.
The diagram above is a representation of the age and sex structure of the population, known as a population pyramid. Each bar represents a particular single year of age and the length shows the population of that age. The structure of the pyramid is determined by births, deaths and migration.
Up to the age of around 70, the number of males and females are fairly equal. At the top of the pyramid, from the age of 71 onwards, females outnumber males more. This is shown by longer bars on the female side of the pyramid. The ratio of females to males increases progressively from 1.1 at age 71, to 2.1 by the age of 89. This reflects the higher life expectancy of women at older ages and higher male mortality during the Second World War.
Further down the pyramid, people of working age (aged 16 to 64 for males and 16 to 59 for females) represent 62 per cent of the total mid-2008 population. The pyramid also shows the ‘bulge’ of the ‘baby boomers’ born in the 1960s moving into the older ages.
A sharp tapering of the pyramid for people aged 31 to 37 reflects the low fertility in the 1970s. Another narrowing of the pyramid appears between the ages of 7 and 20 reflecting the low fertility rates from the late 1980s to early 2000s. The number of births dropped to 663,000 in the year to mid-2002, but increased steadily from mid-2003 onwards to 791,000 in the year to mid-2008, thus broadening the base of the pyramid.
The mid-2008 population of the constituent countries of the UK is estimated as follows:
Notes: Average age - The 'median' average has been used here which means half the population are older and half the population are younger.
People of 'retirement age' are those aged 65 and over for males and 60 and over for females.
Estimates of the very elderly can be found by following the link in Related Links.
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Interactive Population Pyramid