Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Ethiopia and 
Mexico, side by side
Ethiopia in 2026: half the people are older than 20. Mexico: half are older than 31.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Ethiopia 128,691,692 people · Mexico 129,739,759
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
ETH × MEX · 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
- 39
- Aged 15 to 64
- 58
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
- Children, under 15
- 24
- Aged 15 to 64
- 67
- Aged 65 and over
- 9
ETH × MEX · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
Ethiopia is at about 3.7 children for each woman, at this year's rates; Mexico is at about 1.9. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 68 years in Ethiopia, about 76 in Mexico.
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.
ETH × MEX · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Ethiopia has about as many people as Mexico: 139 million against 133 million.
Set each against its own 1950 self and Ethiopia's population is 7.9 times what it was in 1950, Mexico's population is 4.8 times what it was in 1950.
Ethiopia's population is still growing in 2100; Mexico's population is expected to peak in 2058. In 2100: 367 million in Ethiopia, 130 million in Mexico (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Ethiopia: people | Mexico: people | Ethiopia: half older than | Mexico: half older than | Ethiopia: children per woman | Mexico: children per woman | Ethiopia: life expectancy | Mexico: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 17.6704 million | 27.5879 million | 18.0 | 17.9 | 6.43 | 6.71 | 35.5 | 43.8 |
| 1960 | 21.3767 million | 36.7246 million | 18.5 | 16.5 | 6.51 | 6.76 | 39.6 | 53.6 |
| 1970 | 27.8291 million | 50.8150 million | 18.0 | 16.0 | 6.78 | 6.53 | 42.1 | 58.9 |
| 1980 | 34.4285 million | 67.3003 million | 16.7 | 16.7 | 7.29 | 4.74 | 42.8 | 64.3 |
| 1990 | 47.6097 million | 82.8202 million | 16.8 | 19.7 | 7.20 | 3.44 | 45.1 | 69.0 |
| 2000 | 67.4115 million | 98.6256 million | 16.1 | 22.8 | 6.65 | 2.71 | 50.9 | 72.6 |
| 2010 | 90.5385 million | 113.624 million | 16.8 | 25.8 | 5.28 | 2.34 | 59.7 | 73.7 |
| 2023 | 128.692 million | 129.740 million | 19.7 | 29.9 | 3.99 | 1.91 | 67.3 | 75.1 |
| 2030* | 152.855 million | 136.905 million | 21.2 | 32.5 | 3.43 | 1.79 | 69.2 | 76.4 |
| 2040* | 188.451 million | 144.624 million | 23.1 | 36.1 | 2.90 | 1.73 | 71.4 | 78.1 |
| 2050* | 225.022 million | 148.946 million | 25.6 | 39.7 | 2.55 | 1.70 | 73.3 | 79.8 |
| 2060* | 260.708 million | 149.893 million | 28.2 | 43.0 | 2.32 | 1.69 | 75.1 | 81.5 |
| 2070* | 293.791 million | 148.063 million | 30.6 | 45.5 | 2.15 | 1.68 | 76.9 | 82.9 |
| 2080* | 323.239 million | 143.798 million | 33.1 | 47.5 | 2.03 | 1.67 | 78.5 | 84.3 |
| 2090* | 347.651 million | 137.597 million | 35.4 | 49.1 | 1.94 | 1.67 | 80.1 | 85.6 |
| 2100* | 367.290 million | 130.249 million | 37.6 | 50.2 | 1.88 | 1.67 | 81.6 | 86.8 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
ETH − MEX · 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 Ethiopia and which is Mexico, 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; Ethiopia is drawn in solid blue squares and Mexico 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: Ethiopia · Mexico. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Other comparisons
- Bangladesh and Ethiopia
- Brazil and Ethiopia
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia
- Egypt and Ethiopia
- Ethiopia and Kenya
- Ethiopia and Nigeria
- Ethiopia and Russia
- Brazil and Mexico
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mexico
- Egypt and Mexico
- Mexico and Russia
- Mexico and United States
- Ethiopia and Eastern Africa
- Mexico and Central America
Apparatus
Sources and method
Every figure for Ethiopia and Mexico is the United Nations Population Division's, from World Population Prospects 2024: counted to 2023, and the medium projection for each year after that. Both places are taken from the same release and the same tables, which is what makes them comparable at all.
The working behind the median age, the rounding in the “100 people” pictures and the reason the regions are kept out of the all-country views are all set out in the method.
This is one of 250 pairs with a page. The boxes at the top will take any other two places you want to see side by side.
Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries