Nine in 10 living humans were born after Elizabeth became queen

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the Queen Elizabeth II delivery office in Windsor, England on April 20, 2016. The queen died aged 96 on Thursday. Picture: REUTERS/Chris Jackson/Pool

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the Queen Elizabeth II delivery office in Windsor, England on April 20, 2016. The queen died aged 96 on Thursday. Picture: REUTERS/Chris Jackson/Pool

Published Sep 9, 2022

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Queen Elizabeth II’s death on Thursday afternoon brings an end to one of the longest leadership tenures in world history. For parts of eight decades, Elizabeth served as monarch of Britain, with more than 70 years passing between her ascension to the throne in 1952 and her death.

The scope of her tenure can be encapsulated quite simply. Until Thursday, at least nine out of every 10 living human beings have never known a British monarch other than Elizabeth.

Data from the CIA World Factbook provides a calculation of the age distribution of every country on Earth. The figures are loosely grouped, so the most accurate figure we can get for many countries is the size of the population aged 65 or over. In other words, we have a tally of the number of people who were born in the mid-1950s (depending on the recency of the CIA estimates) — so approximately the number of people who were alive before Elizabeth’s ascension.

In Europe and North America, there is a much higher density of older people than in Africa, for example.

According to the World Factbook’s data, about 10% of the global population is aged 65 and over.

In Britain, though, that figure is nearly 19%, and just over the 17% in the US. Near the poles are Japan and Nigeria — the former with a much more heavily old population, and the latter with a much less heavily old one.

That’s an estimate, of course, since “over 65” is not equivalent to “born before 1952”. In the US, though, Census Bureau data gives us a more precise sense of the population that’s never experienced a non-Queen Elizabeth II world.

About eight in nine US residents were born in or after 1952.

The vast majority of the living human population has always existed alongside her royal highness Queen Elizabeth II.

Until Thursday.

The Washington Post