Tag: #population

ICAEW chart of the week: China population

Our chart this week follows the news that China’s population has peaked at just over 1.4bn, illustrating the dramatic change that has taken place over the last 40 years.

Step chart showing the change between China's population in 1981 and 2021. 997m in 1981, comprising 765m age 0-39, 228m age 40-79 and 4m age 80+. +776m births - 332m deaths - 15m net migration = 1,426m in 2021 comprising 735m age 0-39, 658m age 40-79 and 33m age 80+.

The news that China’s population has peaked and is starting to fall prompted us to take a look at how the country with the largest population in the world has changed over the last 40 years.

In 1981, two years after the introduction of the one-child policy, China was a young country, with a population of 997m and a median age of 21. Today it is a mature country, with a population of 1,426m and a median age of 38, approaching that of many western countries.

Our chart shows how that population has changed according to the United Nations Population Division. In July 1981, China was estimated to amount to 997m, comprising 765m under the age 40, 228m between the ages of 40 and 79, and 4m aged 80 or over. Since then, there have been 776m births, 332m deaths and net outward migration of 15m to reach a total of 1,426m in July 2021. This comprised 735m people aged between 0 and 39, 658m between 40 and 79 and 33m aged 80 or over.

The dramatic change in the age profile reflects the huge success that China has had in tackling poverty and disease, enabling many more children to survive into adulthood compared with previous generations, and to then live longer lives. Infant mortality fell from 45 per thousand births in 1981 to less than six per thousand in 2021 and life expectancy at birth increased from 65 to 78.

The rapid growth in the population over the last 40 years has slowed in recent years as the number of births has fallen and (as the population has aged) deaths have increased. There were 10.9m births in 2021 (down from 12.2m in 2020, much less than the 22.8m births in 1981) and 10.6m deaths (up from 10.3m in 2020 and much higher than the 7.4m deaths recorded in 1981). With net outward migration of 0.2m, the net increase in the population in 2021 was less than 0.1m, down from the net increase of 1.9m in 2021 and much lower than the 17.1m increase experienced in 1982 and the peak increase of 19.9m in 1990.

According to the UN’s numbers, China’s population was expected to peak this year (in 2023), with a central projection that would see the population falling by 233m the next 40 years to 1,193m in 2061, and then to 767m in 2100.

However, China’s population is now believed to have peaked already, with the National Bureau of Statistics of China announcing on 17 January 2023 that China’s population excluding foreign citizens and excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan fell by 0.85m from 1,412.6m in December 2021 to 1,411.75m at the end of 2022.

India, with an estimated population of 1,407m in July 2021 according to the UN, was expected to overtake China as the world’s largest population during 2023, but there is some speculation following China’s announcement that this has already occurred. India’s population is currently projected to continue to grow over the next 40 years and peak at 1,697m in 2064.

With the population peaking and many more people living longer lives, the fiscal challenge facing China becomes similar to those facing western nations: how to support a rapidly increasing number of pensioners at the same time as the working age population is declining.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: England and Wales Census 2021

The ICAEW chart of the week looks at the results of last year’s census, illustrating how the population of southern and central England has grown much faster than in the north of England and in Wales over the past decade.

Bubble chart overlayed on a map of England & Wales scaled to population in each region with inner bubbles showing the increase in the last decade. North East 2.6m (+1.9%) North West 7.4m (+5.2%) Yorkshire 5.5m (+3.7%) West Midlands 6.0m (+6.2%) East Midlands 4.9m (+7.7%) East of England 6.3m (+8.3%) South West 5.7m (+7.8%) South East 9.3m (+7.5%) London 8.8m (+7.7%) Wales 3.1m (+1.4%)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the first results from Census 2021 in England and Wales on Tuesday 28 June, providing an initial snapshot of who we are and where we live across two of the four nations of the UK. It follows on from the initial release earlier this year of the Northern Ireland Census 2021, but we won’t see a full picture for the UK for some time as the 2022 census in Scotland was delayed until this year.

The chart highlights how the East of England was the fastest growing region in England, with its population growing by 8.3% to 6.3m between 2011 and 2021. This was followed by the South West (up 7.8% to 5.7m), London (up 7.7% to 8.8m), East Midlands (up 7.7% to 4.9m) and the South East (up 7.5% to 9.3m). The West Midlands grew less quickly (up 6.2% to 6.0m), but still by more than the North West (up 5.2% to 7.4m), Yorkshire (up 3.7% to 5.5m) and the North East (up 1.9% to 2.6m). The population of Wales only increased by 1.4% over 10 years to remain at 3.1m.

In total the population of England and Wales amounted to 59.6m in 2021. This was 6.3% higher than the 56.1m people living in the UK in 2011 and 14.6% higher than the 52.0m reported by the 2001 census. This reflects a slowing rate of growth in the last decade at 0.6% a year on average compared with the average rate of 0.8% seen between 2001 and 2011 and is substantially lower than the compound growth of 1.6% a year experienced over 120 years since the first official census in 1801 reported a population of 8.9m in England & Wales.

The ONS has published a breakdown of the population by age and sex by local authority, highlighting how the number of people has changed significantly in some parts of the country, such as Tower Hamlets (up 22% in 10 years), Dartford (up 20%), Barking and Dagenham (up 18%), Bedford (up 18%), Peterborough (up 17.5%), Central Bedfordshire and Tewkesbury (each up 16%) and Salford, Milton Keynes, Uttlesford, Vale of White Horse and Wokingham (each up by around 15%). The biggest falls were in Kensington and Chelsea (down 10%) and Westminster (down 7%), although there is some speculation that this was because of the pandemic as family and second homes elsewhere proved to be more attractive places to work from home during lockdown. This is unlikely to be the driver of decreases in some rural areas such as the 6% fall in Ceredigion in Wales or the 5% fall in Copeland in Cumbria, where long-term trends of population decline have continued.

The census has also confirmed how we are getting older on average, with a 20% increase in those aged 65 and over from 9.2m in 2011 to 11.1m in 2021. This continues to be a big driver for public finances, as more funding is needed to pay for pensions, health and social care at the expense of other public services.

There is still a lot of data crunching to do as the statisticians work through the more in-depth questions on the census, ranging from employment status, education and housing to ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity among other characteristics – demographics in action and the likely source of future charts of the week.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Global population

The ICAEW chart of the week looks at how the estimated global population of almost 8bn people is distributed around the world.

Bubble chart showing estimated global population of 7,995m in 2022: South Asia 1,894m, East Asia 1,671m, South East Asia 682m, Pacific 43m, Africa 1,419, Europe 592m, Middle East 357m, Eurasia 246m, North America 511m, South America 443m and Central America & Caribbean 97m.

UN projections show that the planetary population will reach approximately 7,955m in June this year, a 1.0% increase over the 7,875m estimate for June 2021.

The largest region on our chart is South Asia, which has 1,894m inhabitants, including 1,411m in India, 216m in Pakistan, 173m in Bangladesh, 40m in Afghanistan and 31m in Nepal. This is followed in size by the 1,671m people living in East Asia, including 1,432m in mainland China (currently the most populous country in the world), 126m in Japan, 52m in South Korea and 26m in North Korea.

Africa is the third largest region with 1,419m inhabitants, with 482m living in Eastern Africa (including Ethiopia 118m, Tanzania 67m, Kenya 56m, Uganda 50m, Mozambique 34m and Madagascar 29m), 424m in Western Africa (including Nigeria 217m, Ghana 32m, Côte d’Ivoire 27m and Niger 26m), 254m in Northern Africa (including Egypt 106m, Sudan 46m, Algeria 45m and Morocco 38m), 190m in Middle Africa (including the Democratic Republic of the Congo 95m, Angola 35m and Cameroon 27m), and 69m in Southern Africa (of which 60m are in South Africa).

Excluding Russia and Belarus, Europe has 592m people, including 444m in the 27 countries of the EU (including Germany 83m, France 66m, Italy 59m, Spain 46m and Poland 38m), 68m in the UK and 43m in Ukraine, although these numbers are all before taking account of the several million Ukrainians who have been forced to flee the war and are living temporarily in other countries. 

Eurasia, comprising the Commonwealth of Independent States of Russia, Belarus and the ‘stans’ of central Asia, has 246m inhabitants (including Russia 143m and Uzbekistan 34m), while the Middle East has an estimated 357m people (including Turkey 85m, Iran 85m, Iraq 44m, Saudi Arabia 36m and Yemen 32m.

North America has 511m inhabitants (USA 336m, Mexico 137m, Canada 38m), while 97m live in Central America (52m) and the Caribbean (45m), and 443m live in South America (including Brazil 217m, Colombia 51m, Argentina 46m, Peru 34m and Venezuela 34m).

South East Asia has 682m inhabitants, including 277m in Indonesia, 113m in the Philippines, 100m in Vietnam, 70m in Thailand, 56m in Myanmar and 34m in Malaysia. A further 43m people live in the Pacific region, of which 26m are in Australia. 

Although the rate of global population growth was projected to slow significantly in recent years, from 1.3% a year in 2000 when the population was 6.1bn, to 1.0% a year currently and to a forecast of around 0.7% in 20 years’ time, that still means that the number of people on the planet is expected to grow to around 9.8bn in 2050, placing even greater demands on natural resources than today. 

This highlights just how important achieving net zero and environmental sustainability is to the lives and wellbeing of future generations.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: UK population projections 2020 to 2045

Our chart this week is based on the latest population projections for the UK, with an expected 67% increase in the number of people over the age of 75 and a fall in the number under the age of 25 over the next quarter of a century.

Chart illustrating how population of 67.1m people in 2020 (19.8m ages 0-24, 21.8m ages 25-49, 19.7m ages 50-74, 5.8m ages 75+) changes over the 25 years with 16.6m births, 18.0m deaths and 5.3m net migrants to get to 71.0m in 2024 (18.0m ages 0-24, 22.4 ages 25-49, 20.9m ages 50-74 and 9.7m ages 75+). For more detail see the text.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released 2020-based interim population projections on 12 January 2022 providing an insight into how the population of the UK is expected to change over the next 100 years. They are interim because they don’t include the results of the 2021 Census (which is still being worked on), but they do reflect updated assumptions from the 2018-based projections.

The main differences from the previous projections are a lower fertility rate (revised down from 1.78 to 1.59 per woman) reducing the numbers of births significantly, and slight reductions in anticipated life expectancy (from 82.8 years to 82.2 for males and from 85.7 to 85.3 for females) increasing the number of deaths. This has been partly offset by an increase in net annual long-term international migration from 190,000 a year to 205,000 a year, with a central projection last time of 72.8m people in 2045 revised down to 71.0m. The population is then expected to gradually increase to a peak of 71.8m in 2081, before declining back to 71.0m in 2120.

Our chart focuses on the first 25 years of the projections, illustrating how each generation is expected to change over that time. Overall, the estimated population of 67.1m in June 2020 is expected to change by 16.6m births (an average of around 665,000 a year) less 18.0m deaths (720,000 a year), which would result in a fall of 1.4m (55,000 a year) to 65.7m in 2045, at least before taking into account the effects of migration. Estimated net immigration of 5.3m (230,000 a year until 2026, then 205,000 a year) is expected to mean that the population will instead increase, reaching 71.0m in 2045.

There were an estimated 19.8m 0-24 year-olds in 2020, but in a quarter of a century they will all be in the 25-49 age group and so those under 25 will be formed from the 16.6m projected to be born in the 25 years from 2020, which after around 65,000 deaths would be 16.5m before taking account of migration. Some will leave the country and others will arrive, with a projected 1.5m net addition to take the total to 18.0m in 2045, a reduction of 1.8m compared with the previous cohort.

For the 19.8m under-25s in 2020 moving up a cohort to the 25-49 age group in 2045, deaths of 0.2m would reduce this to 19.6m before taking account of net inward migration of 2.8m to get to a projected 22.4m. This is a net increase of 0.6m compared with the previous generation of 21.8m. That generation, which would be aged 50-74 a quarter of a century later, would be reduced by 1.7m deaths to arrive at 20.1m before adding a net 0.8m from migration to get to 20.9m, a 1.2m increase over the 19.7m who were aged 50-74 in 2020.

A much greater proportion of this cohort will not be around in 2045, with a projected 10.2m deaths reducing numbers to 9.5m before adding 0.2m from net inward migration to arrive at a projected total of 9.7m. This is a 67% increase over the current generation of over-75s of 5.8m, with all bar the 38,000 expected to be over 100 in 2045 expected to have passed on, barring major developments in medical science. This compares with the approximately 15,000 people over the age of 100 in 2020.

Overall the rate of increase in the UK population is expected to fall from an estimated 0.4% a year in 2020 to 0.15% by 2045, an average of 0.2% over the coming quarter of a century. This compares with growth rates of 0.6% to 0.8% a year experienced in the last couple of decades, which has been a key driver of economic growth in that time.

The substantial increase in the numbers aged 75 and over is of course a hugely positive development as more people live much longer lives than in previous generations. However, this will have huge implications for the public finances given the cost implications of providing health services, social care and pensions to older generations, particularly those over the age of 75. With proportionately fewer workers (even with planned increases in the retirement age) this is expected to drive higher levels of taxation over the next quarter of a century without much higher levels of economic growth than are currently anticipated.

Fortunately a quarter of a century provides opportunity for governments to address the financial challenges posed by our success in extending lives if they are willing to do so, even with the added debt arising from the pandemic, which is why ICAEW continues to argue for the development of a long-term fiscal strategy to put the public finances on a sustainable path. Such a strategy could make a significant difference to the prosperity of future generations.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Germany

My chart this week is on Germany, where a new ‘traffic light’ coalition government headed by Chancellor-designate Olaf Scholtz is poised to take charge of Europe’s most prosperous nation.

Map of Germany showing population of 83.2m by state or 'bundesländer': Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine Westphalia) 17.9m, Bayern (Bavaria) 13.1m, Baden-Württemberg 11.1m, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) 8.0m, Hessen 6.3m, Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland Palatinate) 4.1m, Sachsen (Saxony) 4.1m, Berlin 3.7m, Schleswig-Holstein 2.9m, Brandenburg 2.5m, Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt) 2.2m, Thüringen 2.1m, Hamburg 1.9m, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 1.6m, Saarland 1.0m and Bremen 0.7m

With a population of 83.2m and a €3.4tn (£2.9tn) economy, Germany is the largest member of the European Union and the fourth biggest national economy in the world after the USA, China and Japan.

The formal agreement of a red-green-yellow ‘traffic light’ coalition between the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Green Party and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) means that Angela Merkel can finally retire as Chancellor to be replaced by SPD-leader Olaf Scholz, the current Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister in the outgoing ‘Grand Coalition’.

According to the coalition agreement, which is still subject to ratification by the three parties, Olaf Scholtz will become the new Chancellor with the SPD filling six of the 15 federal ministries, the Green party filling five ministries and the FDP filling four. Green co-leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck are expected to become Foreign Minister and Economy & Climate Change Minister respectively, while FDP leader Christian Lindner is expected to become Finance Minister.

Despite running the most powerful country in Europe, the new coalition is only responsible for the federal government. As the chart illustrates, Germany has sixteen Bundesländer or federal states, comprising Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine Westphalia) with 17.9m people, Bayern (Bavaria) with 13.1m, Baden-Württemberg with 11.1m, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) with 8.0m, Hessen with 6.3m, Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland Palatinate) and Sachsen (Saxony) each with 4.1m, the city-state of Berlin with 3.7m, Schleswig-Holstein with 2.9m, Brandenburg with 2.5m, Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt) with 2.2m, Thüringen with 2.1m, the city-state of Hamburg with 1.9m, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with 1.6m, Saarland with 1.0m and the city-state of Bremen with 0.7m.

The state governments are also run by coalitions. The now federal opposition Union parties (the Christian Democratic Union and the Bavarian Christian Social Union) lead two- or three-party coalitions in seven states, the SPD lead in seven states, the Greens in one state and Der Linke (the Left) in one state. With a proportional voting system at state and federal levels, coalition government is a way of life in Germany, with parties that are in government in one state being in opposition to each other in others.

Despite being the first three-party coalition at a federal level, with the more complicated negotiations that entails, the coalition agreement has been reached fairly ‘speedily’ by German standards – taking just over two months compared with the six months taken to agree the ‘Grand Coalition’ between the Union parties and the SPD following the last election in September 2017.

The inclusion of the Greens puts climate change at the top of the new government’s priorities, bringing forward the end of coal from 2038 to 2030 for example, while the inclusion of the fiscally prudent FDP will mean limited scope for new government borrowing. Other plans include raising the minimum wage, more defence spending, and legalising cannabis,

To read about the federal budget see my previous ICAEW chart of the week: German federal budget 2022.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: UK population of 67.1m

This week’s chart covers the pre-census population estimate of 67.1m for June 2020 just released by the Office for National Statistics. Do more deaths, fewer births and returning migrants mean the 2021 number will be smaller?

Map of UK with nations and regions in different shades and labels with populations: Scotland 5.5m, North East 2.7m, Yorkshire and the Humber 5.5m, East Midlands 4.8m, East of England 6.3m, London 9.0m, South East 9.2m, South West 5.7m, West Midlands Region 5.9m, Wales 3.2m, North West 7.4m, Northern Ireland 1.9m.

ICAEW’s chart of the week is based on the UK population estimate for June 2020 released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 25 June 2021, which estimates that there were 67.1m people living in the UK last summer. This is the last estimate before the March 2021 census that should provide a more accurate count of the population – potentially leading to revisions to this and previous estimates over the last few years.

The population estimate comprises 56.5m people in England, 5.5m in Scotland, 3.2m in Wales and 1.9m in Northern Ireland. Within England there were 9.0m in London, 9.2m in the South East, 6.3m in the East of England, 4.8m in East Midlands, 5.5m in Yorkshire & the Humber, 2.7m in the North East, 7.4m in North West (including 2.8m in Greater Manchester), 5.9m in the West Midlands (including 2.9m in the West Midlands city-region), and 5.7m in the South West.

The median age for the population was 40.4 years old, with 19.8m aged between 0 and 24, 21.8m from 25 to 49, 19.7m from 50 to 74 and 5.8m aged 75 or more.

The ONS reports that the population increased by 284,000 or 0.43% from 2019 comprising a ‘natural’ increase of 32,000 (701,000 births less 669,000 deaths), net migration of 247,000 (immigration of 622,000 less emigration 375,000) and other movements of 5,000. This is a fall from the 361,000 increase seen in the previous year, primarily because of the coronavirus pandemic from mid-March 2020 to June 2020, when deaths increased and migration went into reverse.

The big question is whether the population may actually shrink when the 2021 census is reported, with deaths from the second and third waves of the pandemic, a further decline in the birth rate and a potential outflow of migrants combining to reduce the population for the first time since 1982.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: The global vaccination challenge

This week’s chart looks at how much progress there has been in vaccinating an estimated global population of 7.8bn people, and how much is left to be done.

Chart showing vaccination status across Europe, North America, China, India, Rest of Asia, Africa and South America. (See text below for details). According to Our World in Data as of 15 June 2021, 727m people are fully vaccinated, 884m are partly vaccinated and 3,847 are not yet vaccinated, based on a target of 70% of a world population of 7,795m.

With a vaccination target of 70% needed to prevent the further spread of the virus, we need to vaccinate just under 5.5bn people. So far, only 727m (9% of the global population) have been fully vaccinated, mostly in China (223m), North America (169m) and Europe (158m).

Only relatively small numbers have been fully vaccinated in India (47m), the rest of Asia (73m), South America & Oceania (46m) and Africa (11m). A further 884m (11%) have been partly vaccinated, comprising China (399m), India (156m), Europe (111m), rest of Asia (73m), North America (67m), South America & Oceania (59m) and Africa (19m).

This leaves 3,847m people (49%) yet to be vaccinated, with 1,128m in Asia excluding China and India, 909m in Africa, 763m in India, 386m in China, 255m in Europe, 227m in South America and 179m in North America.

At the current run rate of around 33m vaccinations a day and assuming two doses are needed for each person, it should in theory take around 260 days or just under nine months to deliver the 8.5bn remaining doses needed. With some vaccinations requiring only one dose and expanded manufacturing capacity, the potential is that the world could be vaccinated even sooner than that.

In practice, it will not be so easy. The current level of vaccinations is being driven by China, which is vaccinating around 16m of its population a day at the moment, and whether many countries in the rest of Asia and Africa can get up to proportionately similar levels is not certain. Many countries will struggle to afford the vaccines they need and the 1bn doses just announced by the G7 will only go so far. Logistically, there are some big challenges in getting vaccines into arms in many parts of the world.

That is why some are saying that it will take until the end of 2022 to fully vaccinate the 70% of people needed to protect against the virus. Let’s hope that they are just being cautious, and the momentum can be maintained to get the world vaccinated even sooner than that.

Source: Our World in Data COVID-19 dataset extracted on 15 June 2021 – Mathieu, E., Ritchie, H., Ortiz-Ospina, E. et al. A global database of COVID-19 vaccinations. Nat Hum Behav (2021).

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: China

18 September 2020: The #icaewchartoftheweek is on China: with 1.4bn people, the largest country in world by population.

Following up on our chart on the United States of America a couple of weeks ago, this time we are looking at China, which has more than four times as many people as the USA and more than 20 times as many as the UK.

There are a number of different ways of allocating China’s 33 first-level administrative divisions (excluding Taiwan) into wider regions, but for this particular chart we have gone with the five military districts used by the People’s Liberation Army, which divides up the provinces into Western, Southern, Central, Eastern and Northern China.

Three regions are similar in population size to the USA, with the 346m population of Central China and 337m of Southern China exceeding the USA’s 332m, while Eastern China with 315m people is not far behind. Northern China with 235m people has about 70% of the numbers in the USA, while Western China with 183m has just over half as many. They all substantially exceed the UK’s 69m population.

At 9.60m square kilometres China is marginally smaller than the USA’s 9.84m, although if inland waters are excluded this turns around with China’s 9.33m square kilometre land area exceeding the USA’s 9.15m. Hence, there is around four times as much space per person in the USA than in China, which in turn has twice as much space per person as for the UK.

Economically, China was around 30% bigger than the USA on a ‘purchasing power parity’ (PPP) basis in 2019, when US GDP was $21.4tn. However, based on actual exchange rates, China’s economy was around two-thirds of the size. Economic activity per person in China in 2019 was around $20,000 on a PPP basis and $10,000 on an actual exchange rate basis, compared with the $64,000 or so per person that was generated in the USA. This compares with the UK, where economic activity in 2019 was in the order of $45,000 per person using PPP and $41,000 using actual exchange rates.

China is not expected to remain the largest country by population for much longer, with India’s just under 1.4bn people expected to grow at a faster rate to overtake China within the next decade.

Image of table showing population by province within each region. For readable version of the table please go to the original ICAEW chart using the link at the end of this post.

This chart was originally published on the ICAEW website.

ICAEW chart of the week: United States of America

4 September 2020: It is back to school for the #icaewchartoftheweek with some graphical geography to illustrate the 50 states and one district that together comprise the United States of America.

Map of the USA split into five regions: West 70m people, Southwest 43m, Midwest 69m, Southeast 86m, Northeast 64m.

Surprisingly, there is no single official set of regions for the USA, with states classified differently according to which federal agency is responsible for the classification. For example, the US Census Bureau uses four regions (the Northeast, the Midwest, the South and the West), while the Bureau of Economic Analysis allocates the states between eight regions, the Office of Management and Budget uses 10, the federal court system 11, and the Federal Reserve 12.

For the purposes of this particular chart, we have allocated the states based on an unofficial but commonly accepted grouping of states: the West, the Midwest, the Northeast, the Southwest and the Southeast. Unlike the census regions, Delaware, Maryland and Washington DC are included as part of the Northeast, while Arizona and New Mexico (part of the West in some classifications) are combined with Texas and Oklahoma to form the Southwest, with the remaining Southern states constituting the Southeast region.

In terms of population, this gives five regions of which three – the West with 70m, the Midwest with 69m and the Northeast with 64m – are pretty close to the UK’s current population of 67m. The Southeast’s 86m population is almost 30% more than the UK (being closer to Germany’s 84m), while the Southwest’s 43m is around 35% less than the UK’s population (slightly below Spain’s 47m).

Although the UK is around a fifth of the size of the USA in terms of population, it is much much smaller in terms of area, with the USA’s 9.84m square kilometres more than 40 times the UK’s 0.24m square kilometres. That is around eight times as much space per person as for the UK.

Image of table showing the states of the USA by region. For the table itself, click on the link at the end of this post to go to the ICAEW website


This chart of the week was originally published on the ICAEW website.

ICAEW chart of the week: UK population in lockdown

3 July 2020: Only a fraction of the population was working at their normal workplace during the Great Lockdown, but what will happen as businesses start to re-open and the furlough scheme becomes less generous?

UK population 67m: workforce 34m (working at workplace 9m, working from home 10m, furloughed 12m, unemployed 3m); outside workforce: children & students 16m, retired 12m, other inactive 5m.

The #icaewchartoftheweek takes a look at the workforce this week, illustrating how the lockdown has transformed the world of work over the last three months.
 
Our (admittedly) back of the envelope calculations based on ONS and HM Treasury data suggest that only around 9m of the 34m strong workforce have been working normally at their ordinary places of work during the lockdown, with somewhere in the region of 10m working remotely. In addition, just under 12m workers have been furloughed, comprising 9.3m employees on the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) and 2.6m self-employed on the self-employed income support scheme (SEISS).
 
Unemployment, which was around 1.2m back in February, has jumped to an extrapolated estimate of around 2.7m by the end of June and is likely to grow still further as the furlough scheme becomes less generous from 1 July. The ONS’s experimental claimant count metric, which includes a wider group of workers needing financial support from the state, had reached 2.8m by the end of May and is expected to have exceeded 3m by the end of June.
 
The overall workforce of 34m excludes the 33m ‘economically inactive’ half of the population, comprising 16m children and students, 12m retirees and 5m other inactive individuals. The 2.1m students over the age of 16 included in this category excludes around 1m or so students with part-time work or who were looking for work prior to the lockdown who are included in the workforce numbers, while retirees include around 1.2m below the age of 65 who have taken early retirement. Other inactive individuals between the ages of 16 and 64 include 1.8m homemakers, 2.3m disabled or ill, and 1.1m not working for other reasons.
 
These numbers are a moving target as more workers will start to return to their normal workplaces over the next few weeks as the economy starts to re-open, even if many continue to work from home where they can. More worryingly, unemployment is likely to rise significantly with the furlough scheme requiring an employer contribution from July onwards and when it comes to an end in October.

This #icaewchartoftheweek was originally published by ICAEW.