In Sixty Countries There Are More Than Fifty Children per Hundred Adults
The Central African Republic has 99 under-15s per 100 working-age adults. South Korea has 16 — the same ratio, six times apart, deciding what a country can afford.
Youth dependency — under-15s per 100 working-age adults — runs from 99 in the Central African Republic to 16 in South Korea and Singapore, with 60 of 194 countries above 50 and a global median of 34.
The Central African Republic has 99 under-15s per 100 working-age adults. South Korea has 16.
That is the same measurement, six times apart, and it decides more about what a country can afford than almost any other number on this site.
The two ends
| Highest | Lowest | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Central African Republic | 99 | South Korea | 16 |
| Somalia | 92 | Singapore | 16 |
| Chad | 89 | Andorra | 16 |
| DR Congo | 88 | Puerto Rico | 18 |
| Mali | 88 |
The global median is 34. Sixty of 194 countries are above 50 — meaning more than one child for every two working-age adults.
What the ratio actually measures
It is a cost structure, not a judgement.
Every child in a population needs schooling, healthcare and food, and produces no income. A country at 99 is running a school and health system for a population almost half of which is under fifteen, funded by the other half. A country at 16 has the opposite problem arriving later.
Neither number is good or bad on its own. What makes the high end hard is timing: the bill arrives roughly fifteen years before the return. A country pays for a cohort's schooling in the 2020s and receives its labour in the 2040s, and the intervening period is where the pressure sits.
The 22 countries with the youngest populations
The countries at the top of the dependency table are the same ones with the highest fertility — the 22 with a rate of 4.0 or more, holding 881 million people and 357 million of Generation Alpha.
| Country | Under-15 share | Youth dependency | Median age |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central African Republic | 49% | 99 | 15 |
| Somalia | 47% | 92 | 16 |
| Mali | 46% | 88 | 16 |
| Chad | 46% | 89 | 16 |
| DR Congo | 45% | 88 | 16 |
| Uganda | 44% | 85 | 16 |
| Angola | 44% | 84 | 16 |
A median age of 15 or 16 means half the country has not finished secondary school. That is a different kind of society from one with a median age of 41, and most writing about "young populations" does not convey how young.
The dividend, and why it is not automatic
The standard argument is that a young population becomes a demographic dividend: as fertility falls, the child bulge moves into working age, dependency drops, and output per person rises.
The mechanism is real and the outcome is not automatic. The dividend requires the cohort to arrive at working age with schooling and jobs waiting. Where secondary completion is 9%, the same cohort arrives without either, and a large young population becomes a cost twice rather than a return.
That is the actual policy question behind this table, and it is decided fifteen years before anyone can see the result.
See the full ranking at youth dependency ratio by country, the classification behind it at half the world is past the transition, or the under-15 shares at under-15 population by country.