The bar charts below ilustrate how the total population and theproportion of people across different age groups in a town in UKhad changed over a span of 60 years from 1951 to 2011. Overall,the number of population exhibited a fluctuating trend, whichnearly doubled over the six decades.
One of the prominent features is that at first, the figure for total population increased steadily, doubling during the 40 years from 100,000 in 1951 to 1991 in 200,000 and reached its peak. Then, it experienced a slight drop to about 175,000 in 2011, yet remained higher than the figures for 1951 and 1971. Moving to the age group distribution, one can easily find that the proportions of people in 0-14 group and those in 14-29 group showcase a comparable rise, as the former achieved a 5% increase from 16% in 1951 to 21% in 2011, while the latter standed up to15% at the beginning and then climbed to 20% in 2011. The ageing trend in this town is gradually intensifying, with the proportion of residents aged 65 and over steadily increasing, accounting for about one quarter of the total population in 2011.
Turning to the middle-age people from 30 to 64 years old, a large decrease was witnessed by the 60-year period. Standing up for 19% in 1951 and after a slight increase to 20% during the first 20years, the figure for 30-39 group halved in 1991, which increased marginally to 11% in 2011. In comparison, the percentage ofpeople in 40-64 group, which ranked the highest in 1951, accounting for 45%, plunged to 31% in 1971. Over the past two decades from 1991 to 2011, it has experienced another sharpdecline from 30% to 21%. Overall, while the total population had its ups and downs, the age-group distribution changed significantly, with a growing proportion of older residents and a shift in the dominance of age groups.