Population estimates as at 30 June each year. Where a bar does not have a segment for 2025, the number of people in that category is predicted to decrease by 2025. The predicted number is shown as a lighter coloured line on the overlying 2005 bar. Population components may not add exactly due to rounding.
Source:
Population estimates from the Transport Population Data Centre, Department of Planning (HOIST). Centre for Epidemiology and Research, NSW Department of Health.
A population pyramid consists of two back-to-back bar graphs, one showing the number of males, and one showing the number of females in a particular population in five-year age groups.
Population pyramids are used to provide a quick overall picture of the age and sex structure in a population. They can have many shapes. Population pyramids that are triangular in shape (broad at the base and narrow rapidly towards the top) indicate a large number of children and a small number of older people, which implies a high fertility rate, high death rate, and short life expectancy. A more rectangular shape reflects lower death rates, with most of the population living to old age. Migration patterns, for example young adults moving to urban areas, and retired people moving to coastal areas, also affect the shape of the population pyramid. Changes in the shape of a population pyramid over time reflects the changing composition of the population, associated with changes in fertility, mortality and migration at each age (Last, 2001).
Last JM (editor) A Dictionary of Epidemiology, Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press, 2001.
New South Wales Department of Planning, Transport and Population Data Centre. New South Wales State and Regional Population Projections 2001-2051. 2005 release.
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Copyright notice:
This work is copyright NSW Department of Health, 2006. It may be reproduced
in whole or in part, subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgement of the source. Commercial usage or sale is prohibited.
Population Health Division. The health of the people of New South Wales -
Report of the Chief Health Officer. Sydney: NSW Department of Health. Available at:
http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/chorep/dem/dem_pop_age_multilga_93.htm. Accessed (insert date of access).
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