Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Australia and 
New Zealand, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in Australia are older than 40. In New Zealand, half are older than 39.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Australia 26,451,124 people · New Zealand 5,172,836
How to read this: each pyramid stacks a place’s people by age — babies at the bottom, the oldest at the top, men on the left and women on the right. A wide bottom means many children; a wide top means many older people.
Each bar is a share of its own place’s people, so a small country and a large one can be read side by side.
men women projected
AUS × NZL · 2026 · age groups
If each place were 100 people
Shrink each population to 100 people and count them. Dots are children under 15, filled squares are people aged 15 to 64, and open squares are people 65 and over. The picture follows the year slider above.
- Children, under 15
- 18
- Aged 15 to 64
- 64
- Aged 65 and over
- 18
- Children, under 15
- 18
- Aged 15 to 64
- 64
- Aged 65 and over
- 18
AUS × NZL · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Australia would have about 1.6 children and a woman in New Zealand about 1.6. A baby born in Australia this year can expect to live about 84 years. In New Zealand, about 83.
Children per woman, 2026
Each figure is one child: how many children a woman would have in her lifetime at that year’s rates.
The dashed line at 2.1 is about what it takes for each generation to replace the one before it, leaving migration aside.
How long a newborn can expect to live, 2026
Each block is ten years of life, if the death rates of that year stayed the same all life long.
Hatched marks are UN projections (medium variant), not measurements.
AUS × NZL · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Australia is the larger of the two, with about 5 times as many people as New Zealand: 27.2 million to 5.3 million.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Australia's population is 3.3 times what it was in 1950, while New Zealand's population is 2.8 times what it was in 1950.
Australia's population is still growing in 2100; New Zealand's population is expected to peak in 2078. In 2100: 43.1 million in Australia, 5.8 million in New Zealand (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Australia: people | New Zealand: people | Australia: half older than | New Zealand: half older than | Australia: children per woman | New Zealand: children per woman | Australia: life expectancy | New Zealand: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 8.17675 million | 1.91126 million | 30.4 | 29.4 | 3.06 | 3.55 | 69.0 | 69.3 |
| 1960 | 10.2808 million | 2.37948 million | 29.6 | 27.5 | 3.45 | 4.24 | 70.9 | 71.2 |
| 1970 | 12.5994 million | 2.82218 million | 27.6 | 25.6 | 2.86 | 3.17 | 70.7 | 71.2 |
| 1980 | 14.7213 million | 3.14633 million | 29.4 | 27.9 | 1.90 | 2.03 | 74.6 | 72.9 |
| 1990 | 17.1263 million | 3.39698 million | 32.1 | 31.1 | 1.91 | 2.17 | 77.0 | 75.4 |
| 2000 | 19.1325 million | 3.85757 million | 35.4 | 34.3 | 1.76 | 1.98 | 79.6 | 78.7 |
| 2010 | 22.1416 million | 4.34777 million | 37.0 | 36.9 | 1.95 | 2.17 | 82.0 | 81.0 |
| 2023 | 26.4511 million | 5.17284 million | 38.8 | 38.3 | 1.64 | 1.67 | 83.9 | 82.1 |
| 2030* | 28.1885 million | 5.40735 million | 40.5 | 40.2 | 1.64 | 1.62 | 84.9 | 83.1 |
| 2040* | 30.3575 million | 5.61729 million | 42.5 | 42.6 | 1.64 | 1.62 | 86.1 | 84.4 |
| 2050* | 32.5070 million | 5.75529 million | 43.0 | 43.7 | 1.64 | 1.62 | 87.3 | 85.7 |
| 2060* | 34.5627 million | 5.83320 million | 43.9 | 45.3 | 1.63 | 1.61 | 88.3 | 86.8 |
| 2070* | 36.6351 million | 5.85904 million | 44.6 | 46.6 | 1.63 | 1.62 | 89.4 | 87.9 |
| 2080* | 38.7008 million | 5.86459 million | 44.9 | 47.3 | 1.64 | 1.62 | 90.5 | 88.9 |
| 2090* | 40.8767 million | 5.83650 million | 45.1 | 47.8 | 1.64 | 1.62 | 91.6 | 90.0 |
| 2100* | 43.1437 million | 5.81229 million | 45.8 | 48.5 | 1.63 | 1.63 | 92.6 | 91.0 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
AUS − NZL · 1950–2100 · every age
Which ages each place has more of
Each column is a year and each row an age, from babies at the bottom to 100 at the top. The shade of a cell shows which place has more of its people at that age — the key beside the picture tells you which shade is Australia and which is New Zealand, and the in-between shade means the same. Because it compares shares, a small place and a large one can be compared fairly.
236 countries · 1950–2100
Where they sit among all countries
Every country in the world, every year from 1950 to 2100. The grey cloud shows where most countries are; Australia is drawn in solid blue squares and New Zealand in open orange squares, so you can see whether each is ahead of the crowd, behind it or in the middle.
More comparisons
Keep exploring
Each place on its own: Australia · New Zealand. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Apparatus
Sources and method
Both sides of this comparison come from the UN Population Division's World Population Prospects 2024 — the same release, the same tables, counted to 2023 and projected beyond it on the medium variant. That shared origin is what a comparison rests on.
How the median age and the “100 people” pictures are worked out, and why the pictures of every country leave the regions out: how the figures here are put together.
There are 250 ready-made comparisons on this site. For anything else, name two places in the boxes at the top of the page.
Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries