7 ms·

U.S. and World Population Clock

48 points by recardona 12y ago

largehotcoffee 12y ago
Interesting that the population age drops off right at 65 (also the retirement age).
- yahelc 12y ago
  That's a function of the Baby Boomers starting to enter their mid-60s.
  - stormen 12y ago
    I would guess it's rather that the birth rate during the war was rather low, given that a lot of young males were either in Europe and/or killed?
    - adventured 12y ago
      That's not correct. Population growth increased from the 1930s compared to the 1940s, and accelerated during the war (it was eg twice as high in '45 and '46 as '33). The great depression had a much greater impact on population growth than WW2 did. The only negative modern year being 1918 (combination of WW1 + deep recession post war + flu pandemic). Live births also increased during WW2. http://www.multpl.com/us-population-growth-rate/table/by-year http://www.multpl.com/us-population-growth-rate/table/by-yea... http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005067.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005067.html
elementary2014 12y ago
Quite interesting so many of the top countries are Muslim (Bangladesh, Pakistan, big chunks of Nigeria and India). I wonder what will happen in the near future when the Muslim population inevitably dominates over the other groups.
- stormen 12y ago
  As it gets more educated and gains a higher level of living standard, the muslim population will slow its birth rate. A high birth rate is primarily visible in countries where you HAVE to have kids to survive when you get old.
  - camus2 12y ago
    It is specifically about women getting emancipated. Nigeria is really an oddity. Wonder why the birthrate is that exponential there.
D9u 12y ago
I see a discrepancy between the listing of the 10 most populous nations, and the counter... http://i.imgur.com/Jm9uQSF.png http://i.imgur.com/Jm9uQSF.png 3. United States 318,892,103 But the counter for the USA (as I write this) says: 317,760,552.
- itafroma 12y ago
  The data for the top 10 countries are being pulled from the Census Bureau's International Database. Here's the US data: http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/region.php?N=%20Results%20&T=13&A=separate&RT=0&Y=2014&R=-1&C=US http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/regi... There, you can see 2014's mid-year population is identical to the top 10 chart. So 318,892,103 is the estimated mid-year population for 2014 (July 1), whereas 317,760,552 is the estimated population as of today (March 27).
tesseract 12y ago
This has been around a long time in one form or another. I remember being fascinated by it as a kid in the early 90s when I was first introduced to the Internet. (Does anyone have a screenshot for comparison? Sadly it doesn't seem to be on archive.org.)
habosa 12y ago
Wow, I can't believe that birth is only 5x as common as immigration in the US. I knew there were a lot of people coming into the country but I didn't think it would be that significant.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  We need more if we are to sustain our tax base; immigration only seems high because fertility is relatively low. While it's a lot in absolute terms, the US is only around 180th in terms of population density, well below average. http://ssab.gov/Documents/IMMIG_Issue_Brief_Final_Version_000.pdf http://ssab.gov/Documents/IMMIG_Issue_Brief_Final_Version_00... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...
  - MrZongle2 12y ago
    Or we could consider spending less.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      No we couldn't. Entitlement spending (eg social security) is mandatory, by law. The architects of that system (and of Medicare) did not foresee the bay boomer generation and the sudden drop in fertility. US pensions are not especially generous, though Medicare costs could certainly be controlled. I urge you to read the SSAB report; this isn't something you can conserve your way out of, same way that you can't conserve your way out of rising carbon pollution. Sure, Congress could pass a law to cut entitlements significantly. But good luck explaining to voters who paid payroll taxes all their working lives that they can't have what they paid for.
spikels 12y ago
Interested in the world's population and got 43 minutes to spare? Joel Cohen of the Rockefeller and Columbia has an excellent discussion. You may be surprised what you learn. http://www.floatinguniversity.com/lectures-cohen http://www.floatinguniversity.com/lectures-cohen Also on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vr44C_G0-o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vr44C_G0-o
shutupalready 12y ago
Notice that there are many more males than females in the USA for in the age bracket when relationships form. The ratio is 1.07 (.73/.68 = 1.07) for 19 year olds. It's incredibly high and I wonder why that is? Think about the implication: No matter what those 107 guys do there will be only enough girlfriends/wives/lovers for 100 hundred of them. The ratio reverses only after age 45. This might explain the extraordinary effort by men to meet women in the U.S. as compared to some other countries and earlier times in U.S. history. The dating sites, the PUA courses, and even Zuckerberg's original motive for Facebook. The competition is super intense because it's a zero sum game. For 7% of men it's futile. (I'm simplifying by ignoring 19 year olds with 45 year old girlfriends, gays relationships, and many other factors.) Most people know that women outnumber men overall, but are unaware that the statistics for young people are reversed.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  Relationships between people that aren't the same age aren't exactly unheard of, and exclusive monogamy isn't exactly an ironclad rule among humans, so two key assumptions underlying your conclusion seem to be invalid.
- logicchains 12y ago
  I've seen some statistics (not sure about their validity) stating that around 10% of the population are gay/bisexual, so if this were the case then having 7% more males than females wouldn't necessarily be a problem.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Unless 10% of females are also gay/bisexual, then it all cancels out. Also, gender disparities could affect the gay/bisexual communities just as much as the straight community.
    - logicchains 12y ago
      That's true. Well at least the imbalance is only in a single age group, not for instance like in China where selective abortions have lead to a nationwide gender gap[1]. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/110615/china-and-the-worst-ever-man-made-gender-gap http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific...
Baily 12y ago
'One death every 12 seconds'___I didn't notice it before.
tzs 12y ago
It would be neat to have some kind of public display that shows two scrolling lists. One is a real time list of births in the US. The other, a real time list of US deaths. The birth and death rates are low enough that most of the time both lists would be changing slow enough that you could easily keep up reading them, but high enough that you could see movement and see that the birth list is growing faster. The death list would probably be the most interesting, as it would be less steady. You'd occasionally see blocks of deaths all in the same location as accidents and disasters happen.
- TorKlingberg 12y ago
  That would require a live feed of births and deaths, which I don't think exists. The site is probably based on projections from census data.
  - nivertech 12y ago
    Minority Report has live feed of future non-natural deaths.
vixen99 12y ago
Poorly-worded heading! Net gain of one person every 16 seconds while the World Population counter ticks merrily away at around two or three per second!
camus2 12y ago
That's no clock,but a ticking time-bomb!
binarytrees 12y ago
The slow demise of the world and it's resources clock.

48 points by recardona 12y ago

largehotcoffee 12y ago

Interesting that the population age drops off right at 65 (also the retirement age).

yahelc 12y ago
That's a function of the Baby Boomers starting to enter their mid-60s.
- stormen 12y ago
  I would guess it's rather that the birth rate during the war was rather low, given that a lot of young males were either in Europe and/or killed?
  - adventured 12y ago
    That's not correct. Population growth increased from the 1930s compared to the 1940s, and accelerated during the war (it was eg twice as high in '45 and '46 as '33). The great depression had a much greater impact on population growth than WW2 did. The only negative modern year being 1918 (combination of WW1 + deep recession post war + flu pandemic). Live births also increased during WW2. http://www.multpl.com/us-population-growth-rate/table/by-year http://www.multpl.com/us-population-growth-rate/table/by-yea... http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005067.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005067.html

elementary2014 12y ago

Quite interesting so many of the top countries are Muslim (Bangladesh, Pakistan, big chunks of Nigeria and India). I wonder what will happen in the near future when the Muslim population inevitably dominates over the other groups.

stormen 12y ago
As it gets more educated and gains a higher level of living standard, the muslim population will slow its birth rate. A high birth rate is primarily visible in countries where you HAVE to have kids to survive when you get old.
- camus2 12y ago
  It is specifically about women getting emancipated. Nigeria is really an oddity. Wonder why the birthrate is that exponential there.

D9u 12y ago

I see a discrepancy between the listing of the 10 most populous nations, and the counter... http://i.imgur.com/Jm9uQSF.png http://i.imgur.com/Jm9uQSF.png 3. United States 318,892,103 But the counter for the USA (as I write this) says: 317,760,552.

itafroma 12y ago
The data for the top 10 countries are being pulled from the Census Bureau's International Database. Here's the US data: http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/region.php?N=%20Results%20&T=13&A=separate&RT=0&Y=2014&R=-1&C=US http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/regi... There, you can see 2014's mid-year population is identical to the top 10 chart. So 318,892,103 is the estimated mid-year population for 2014 (July 1), whereas 317,760,552 is the estimated population as of today (March 27).

tesseract 12y ago

This has been around a long time in one form or another. I remember being fascinated by it as a kid in the early 90s when I was first introduced to the Internet. (Does anyone have a screenshot for comparison? Sadly it doesn't seem to be on archive.org.)

habosa 12y ago

Wow, I can't believe that birth is only 5x as common as immigration in the US. I knew there were a lot of people coming into the country but I didn't think it would be that significant.

anigbrowl 12y ago
We need more if we are to sustain our tax base; immigration only seems high because fertility is relatively low. While it's a lot in absolute terms, the US is only around 180th in terms of population density, well below average. http://ssab.gov/Documents/IMMIG_Issue_Brief_Final_Version_000.pdf http://ssab.gov/Documents/IMMIG_Issue_Brief_Final_Version_00... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...
- MrZongle2 12y ago
  Or we could consider spending less.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    No we couldn't. Entitlement spending (eg social security) is mandatory, by law. The architects of that system (and of Medicare) did not foresee the bay boomer generation and the sudden drop in fertility. US pensions are not especially generous, though Medicare costs could certainly be controlled. I urge you to read the SSAB report; this isn't something you can conserve your way out of, same way that you can't conserve your way out of rising carbon pollution. Sure, Congress could pass a law to cut entitlements significantly. But good luck explaining to voters who paid payroll taxes all their working lives that they can't have what they paid for.

spikels 12y ago

Interested in the world's population and got 43 minutes to spare? Joel Cohen of the Rockefeller and Columbia has an excellent discussion. You may be surprised what you learn. http://www.floatinguniversity.com/lectures-cohen http://www.floatinguniversity.com/lectures-cohen Also on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vr44C_G0-o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vr44C_G0-o

shutupalready 12y ago

Notice that there are many more males than females in the USA for in the age bracket when relationships form. The ratio is 1.07 (.73/.68 = 1.07) for 19 year olds. It's incredibly high and I wonder why that is? Think about the implication: No matter what those 107 guys do there will be only enough girlfriends/wives/lovers for 100 hundred of them. The ratio reverses only after age 45. This might explain the extraordinary effort by men to meet women in the U.S. as compared to some other countries and earlier times in U.S. history. The dating sites, the PUA courses, and even Zuckerberg's original motive for Facebook. The competition is super intense because it's a zero sum game. For 7% of men it's futile. (I'm simplifying by ignoring 19 year olds with 45 year old girlfriends, gays relationships, and many other factors.) Most people know that women outnumber men overall, but are unaware that the statistics for young people are reversed.

dragonwriter 12y ago
Relationships between people that aren't the same age aren't exactly unheard of, and exclusive monogamy isn't exactly an ironclad rule among humans, so two key assumptions underlying your conclusion seem to be invalid.
logicchains 12y ago
I've seen some statistics (not sure about their validity) stating that around 10% of the population are gay/bisexual, so if this were the case then having 7% more males than females wouldn't necessarily be a problem.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Unless 10% of females are also gay/bisexual, then it all cancels out. Also, gender disparities could affect the gay/bisexual communities just as much as the straight community.
  - logicchains 12y ago
    That's true. Well at least the imbalance is only in a single age group, not for instance like in China where selective abortions have lead to a nationwide gender gap[1]. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/110615/china-and-the-worst-ever-man-made-gender-gap http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific...

Baily 12y ago

'One death every 12 seconds'___I didn't notice it before.

tzs 12y ago

It would be neat to have some kind of public display that shows two scrolling lists. One is a real time list of births in the US. The other, a real time list of US deaths. The birth and death rates are low enough that most of the time both lists would be changing slow enough that you could easily keep up reading them, but high enough that you could see movement and see that the birth list is growing faster. The death list would probably be the most interesting, as it would be less steady. You'd occasionally see blocks of deaths all in the same location as accidents and disasters happen.

TorKlingberg 12y ago
That would require a live feed of births and deaths, which I don't think exists. The site is probably based on projections from census data.
- nivertech 12y ago
  Minority Report has live feed of future non-natural deaths.

vixen99 12y ago

Poorly-worded heading! Net gain of one person every 16 seconds while the World Population counter ticks merrily away at around two or three per second!

camus2 12y ago

That's no clock,but a ticking time-bomb!

binarytrees 12y ago

The slow demise of the world and it's resources clock.