Age Structure in Nigeria From 2010 to 2020

Nigeria’s age structure reflects the proportion of individuals at different life stages in the country. Nigeria has a young population with a large concentration of its population below the age of 65. Individuals within 15-64 years of age make up over 50% of the population.

The age structure of a population has important effects on various aspects of society; economic growth rates , labor force participation, educational and healthcare services, housing markets, among others.

A common assumption is that the demography of a population will determine the levels of productivity of the country. Hence, it is commonplace to have the demography of a country split into three broad age groups;

1. Children and young adolescents (0-14 years)
2. Working age or middle-class population (15-64 years)
3. Elderly population (65+ years)

The chart shows the distribution of young and old population across Nigeria. The breakdown of such distribution is key to identifying and understanding the needs, behavior and future pathways of both the young and the old Nigerian populace. Implications of this are visible when issues relating to national planning, education and healthcare services, labor supply, savings rates and pensions spring up.

In 2010, Nigeria had a total population of 158.5 million spread across the age brackets of 0-14 years representing 44.04% of the total population(69.8 million), 15-64 years representing 53.23% of the total population (84.37 million) and 65+ years representing 2.74% of the total population (4.34 million) in Nigeria.

Subsequent years have seen Nigeria’s population grow from 158.5 million in 2010 to 206.14 million in 2020. Between 2010 and 2020, the population of 0-14 years in Nigeria have on average accounted for 44% of total annual population, 15-64 years have averagely accounted for 53.25% of total annual population and 65+ years accounting for an average of approximately 2.75% of total annual population.

By 2020, Nigeria’s population of 206.14 million had spread across the three age groups with 0-14 years accounting for 43.49% of total population (89.65 million), 15-64 years accounting for 53.77% of total population (110.85 million) and 65+ years accounting for 2.74% of total population (5.64 million).

This shows that Nigeria has a high dependency ratio, whereby the number of young people is close to the number of working age population in the country. This trend is prevalent in countries that have low income compared to higher income countries which have lower youth dependency ratio.