Glossary of Terms

Age Structure
The comparative size of specific age groups relative to others or to the population as a whole.

Civil Conflict
A violently contested hostility including the use of armed force. In this report, statistics concerning civil conflict assume that it results in at least 25 battle deaths in a given calendar year and involves at least one party associated with a state.

Democracy
The presence of institutions and procedures through which citizens can express preferences about policies and leaders; existence of institutionalized constraints on the power of the executive; and the guarantee of civil liberties to all citizens.¹ Autocracy is the absence of democracy.

Demographic
Bonus A defined period of time during the process of the demographic transition in which working-age adults make up the largest share of the population, with relatively small groups of dependent children and older adults compared to previous generations.

Demographic Transition
The transformation of a population characterized by large families and short lives into a population of small families and long lives. Varies among populations, but generally occurs as death rates decline and life expectancy increases, followed later by a decline in birthrates.

Dependency Ratio
The share of those too young and too old to generally be productive workers relative to the age group comprising those likely to be in productive working years. The limits of productive working years are often given as ages 15 to 64.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
The sum of the economic value added by all resident producers of a country, plus any product taxes not included in output. GDP per capita is total GDP divided by the midyear population of a country.² Median Age The age where there are an equal number of people older in the population as there are younger.

Reproductive Age
Among women, reproductive age includes the years in which childbearing is generally physically possible: ages 15 to 49.

Reproductive Health
A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. This definition implies that men and women have the right to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, as well as other methods of their choice for regulation of fertility that are not against the law, and the right of access to appropriate health care services that will enable women to go safely though pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant, and of keeping themselves and their family free of sexually transmitted infections.³

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
The number of live births that a woman entering her reproductive years would experience, on average, during her lifetime, if the rates of childbearing for women of all ages remained the same during her reproductive years. TFR is a composite indicator, calculated in a population by adding the age-specific fertility rates of women across the span of reproductive years.