Sex Ratio, Total Dependency Ratio and Aging Index, Alberta and Canada

This Alberta Official Statistic describes Sex Ratio, Total Dependency Ratio, and Aging Index for Alberta and Canada for two census periods, 2006 and 2011. The sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a given population, usually expressed as the number of males for every 100 females. The sex ratio at birth in most countries is about 105 or 106 males per 100 females. After birth, sex ratios vary because of different patterns of mortality and migration for males and females within the population. Dependency ratio (age dependency ratio) is the ratio of persons in the "dependent" ages (generally under age 15 and over age 64) to those in the "economically productive" ages (15 - 64 years) in a population. The age-dependency ratio is sometimes divided into old-age dependency (the ratio of people ages 65 and older to those ages 15-64) and child-dependency (the ratio of people under age 15 to those ages 15-64) ratios. The sum of these two is the Total (age) dependency ratio. This ratio is often used as an indicator of the economic burden the productive portion of a population must carry - even though some persons defined as "dependent" are producers and some persons in the "productive" ages are economically dependent. Countries with very high birth rates usually have higher dependency ratios because of the large proportion of children in the population. The Aging Index is the ratio of persons aged 65 years and over to every 100 persons under age 15 years. It is a measure of aging of a population. The aging index shows that Alberta’s population is younger than that of Canada.