What do wizards do?

[imhotep1]

No: HPFGUIDX 53908


I have been wondering what exactly wizards DO with their time.  I mean,
I know they must work and have jobs, but I can't think of there being
enough non-muggle jobs for all of them.  Here's my logic:

First we need a rough estimate of the wizard population.  I start with
two liberal assumptions: JKR is right about there being 1000 students at
Hogwarts, and that the average wizard lives to about 200 years old. 
This leads to the following equation:
1000 students / 7 years = 143 students per year
143 students per year * 200 years = 28,600 wizards

1430 children (143 per year * the ten years until they get to Hogwarts)
aren't in school yet (assuming that Hogwarts is the only Wizarding
school,) plus the 1000 students at Hogwarts equals 2,430 children who
aren't yet in the wizarding work force.

This leaves 26,170 adult wizard of working age (assuming no post
graduate work after Hogwarts)  Also bear in mind that some (probably
small) percentage of them are squibs.

We know that a large number of wizards are employed with MoM.  The exact
number of which is uncertain (although my math suggests that there are 4
wizards to every 10,000 muggles in the Britain + Ireland (the area over
which Hogwarts is supposed to be the reigning school) which is .04%, so
if someone knew the number of people in the British and Irish
governments and civil services, perhaps we could make a reasonable
estimate of the size of MoM)

We know they have an entertainment industry.  It doesn't seem to be that
large, but looking at the ratio again (.04% of the British + Irish
population) the one band (Weird Sisters,) one form of radio (Wizarding
Wireless Network), one comic book (The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the
Mad Muggle,) one newspaper (The Daily Prophet) and one non-trade
magazine (Witch Weekly,) might be all the population needs.

We know there are at least 91 (13 teams * 7 players) people employed to
play professional quidditch, and probably a support staff (coaches,
reserve players, broom boys, ... )  

We can assume that a bunch of people work in publishing, as there are
quite a few books around.

We can also assume that there are people who work in advertising and
publicity.  In order for Ron's room to be decked out in Chudley Cannons
merchandise, someone must have produced it.

We should not forget the medical practice, of which we know many people
are employed, notably the school nurse, Madam Poppy Pomfrey, and the
mediwizards at the quidditch world cup.

There are those who are fortunate enough to own their own business (the
shops of Diagon and Knockturn alleys, and in Hogsmeade.)

There are also housewives (and presumably house-husbands,) like Molly
Weasley.  Being as so far we haven't seen any divorced families in the
potterverse, perhaps there are more stay-at-home parents in it.

Then there are the trades.  As noted in the lexicon, the magazine
"Transfiguration Today" implies there might be magazines for the other
types of magic, which implies they might be trade magazines of sorts. 
This would, of course, imply technical trades for the wizarding world.
I think the most important one would be enchanters (or whatever the noun
form of "one who makes a living by putting charms on things" is) 
Everything in the wizard world seems to be enchanted, and someone has to
do all of this work.  Simple enchantments might be done at home, but
anything complex would be done by a professional enchanter. 
Transfigurations is also probably quite important, as this would be the
closest to some sort of magical construction technique they have (turn
this stick into a finely crafted broom handle...)

Finally there are the non-glamorous jobs: conductor of the Knight Bus,
driver of the Knight Bus, food service, Hogwarts Express food cart,
dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron, and so fourth.  Some of these may be
squibs, and some may be Hogwarts graduates with little ambition (or low
NEWTs)    There might also be a market for farming, because all of those
rare herbs and roots have to come from somewhere.

What I don't see is enough bottom end production occupations to support
the wizarding population.  Twenty-six-thousand is a lot of people, and
looking at the occupations I have outlined, it seems to me most of them
must be employed doing transfigurations and enchantments of things that
people want, but of which they can't spend the time (or money, if rare
ingredients are involved) I could see this job supporting quite a number
of people, but not enough to justify the wizarding population.

And what do they actually create.  Any population must have some sort of
commodity in order to sustain an economy.  Their two biggest expenses
seem to be the government, and Hogwarts.  That part is consistent with
muggle life (doesn't everybody's money go to taxes and children) But
where do they earn it.  Without some sort of worker base (farmers,
factory workers, ... ) no one actually produces anything new, so the
entire economy would be based on repairing and improving(enchanting)
existing things.
 
And we can't just fudge the numbers to make the WW work better.  If we
start to reduce our estimate (my lowest estimate is 3620 adults in the
WW (40 students per year, average lifespan 100, minus 380 children) then
things start to get ridiculous (and those 91 quidditch players seem a
bit excessive, that's the equivalent of there being 1,632,337
professional soccer (sorry, football) players in Britain + Ireland, or
7,692,307 professional baseball players in the USA (that's about half
the population of California)

Maybe I'm just off my rocker and none of this matters (kind of like the
whole "the dates don't match up" issue,) but does anyone have any
ideas.  Are their wizard farmers?  Do most of the Wizarding folk slave
away in wizarding factories enchanting and transfiguring wizarding
things for wizarding folk?  Do my numbers seem accurate to you, or does
half my home state play professional baseball?

-Jeremy