Work / Tableau Viz / Demography
How population size and age are changing, from the world to Italy
A Tableau story that follows population, mean age, and age structure from the world to Italy, then down to census sections.
Research question
How have population size, mean age, and the balance between generations changed?
The world, European, Italian, and census-section dashboards are published on Tableau Public.
The question is read through three measures that belong together: how many people live in a place, how old that population is on average, and what shape the age pyramid takes.
Why it matters
Population change is more than a headcount.
Growth, ageing, and the widening or narrowing of younger age groups reshape work, care, public services, and the geography of where people live.
The project follows geographic scale. The world view shows where population is concentrated and where societies are younger or older. Europe asks the same questions inside a smaller, older continent, down to NUTS 2 regions. Italy brings the story closer still. Census sections carry it inside a single municipality.
What the dashboards show
Four scales, each with its own reading.
The four dashboards do not repeat the same view. The scale changes, and with it what can be read for a given year.
- From 1960, the world view compares countries on total population, mean age, and five-year age classes, with men and women on opposite sides, from 0–4 to 80 and over. Mean age is derived from those age groups: the World Bank does not publish a ready-made indicator. The view pairs a population map, a mean-age map, and a pyramid for all countries or for one selected country.
- From 1990, the European view maps population and pairs it with an age pyramid, for all countries or for one selected country. Clicking a country opens its NUTS 2 regions.
- A year control moves a map of total population across Italian regions. Clicking a region opens the territories inside it, and a pyramid shows age classes for the selected territory, with men and women on opposite sides.
- In 2021 and 2023, a map shows population by census section, with a pyramid for the selection. Searching a municipality opens its sections. Choosing all municipalities returns the map to Italy.
