Education in States and Nations: 1991

(ESN) Indicator 2: Youth and population

The percentage of persons aged 5 to 29 is an indicator of the potential demand for school enrollments in a country or state. That percentage also is an indicator of the potential demand on national or state budgets for educational funding. The percentage is not an exact measure of the proportion of students in a population, however, since some persons within the age range of 5 to 29 will not be students and some students will be outside the age range. A relatively higher percentage of persons in the 5 to 14 age range may indicate both a higher current demand for educational services at the primary and lower secondary levels, as well as a future demand on the higher levels of education.

• The United States and Canada had a larger proportion of young people in their population than did most OECD countries in 1991. Young people aged 5 to 29 comprised 37 percent of the population of the United States and Canada - 4 percentage points higher than in Germany, one of the countries with the lowest percentage of young people.

• U.S. states tended to have higher proportions of young people in their populations than did the OECD countries. Youth aged 5 to 29 comprised more than 35 percent of the population in 45 of the U.S. states, whereas only 12 of 22 other countries represented here recorded proportions that high.

Table 1b

Figure 2