[HPforGrownups] Wizarding numbers

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 82982

Mikael wrote:
>I've been thinking a bit about the number of wizards, and the posts I
>found when I searched to see what people had already come up with
>weren't satisfying. To calculate the size of the wizarding population
>from the number of students at Hogwarts, we need to know (at least)
>muggle-born students, and Hogwarts attendance.

>lives. I'll assume that the wizarding world has a pretty high mean
>age comparable to Sweden, for which I have data. Children aged 0-10
>make up 12 % of the pop, ages 11-17 make up 9 % and ages 18+ make up
>the rest.

That's not too dissimilar to the figures for the UK, according to the 2001
census, which works out that about 9% of the population are in the 11-17
bracket.

Your assumption about whether it's particularly dangerous to be a wizard is
thought-provoking. One thing that we do know is that although accidents are
more frequent, wizard physique is more robust than muggles so that survival
rates are also high, except in unexpected circumstances such as the
Voldemort rebellion.

I've suggested to the list that it's reasonable to conclude that the normal
wizard lifespan is roughly twice the muggle one and that therefore the 11-17
year olds are around 5% of the population.

>wizards" (p. 101, Bloomsbury pbk). So, a pretty big fraction then.
>Let's assume 50 % for simplicity. This seems a bit too high, but OTOH
>that will compensate for the number of halfblood students; they only
>have one parent adding to the wizard pop.

Somewhere (I'm not sure exactly where), JKR has said that 25% of the
Hogwarts students are muggle-born. That doesn't make it clear whether that
25% includes half bloods. I would assume that it does. Let's make another
very rough assumption, which is that the 6th and 7th years at Hogwarts are a
third lower than years 1-5, because some students don't come back for their
NEWTs. That would imply that, based on a Hogwarts student body of 1000, 39
wizard children/year are born to at least one muggle parent. That doesn't
seem unreasonable to me, based on 300 years of fairly strict segregation of
the two worlds.

>Hogwarts' "drainage basin" that would otherwise go to Hogwarts. The
>larger the fraction of non-hogwarts children, the larger the maximum
>population of wizards is. So I assume 50 % to not underestimate the
>pop size.

Some theories assume that the Hogwarts population is a lot lower than this.

>Another question is 10 500 wizards and wizards-to-be for how many
>muggles? Given the names of known Hogwarts people, I'd say that
>Hogwarts cover the british isles (UK and Ireland) which has a pop of
>64 million people. So, one adult wizard or witch per 8 000 muggles.

Your figure is actually one of the lowest I've seen theorised. Some of the
things that need to be factored in to try to think about the size of the WW
(and I agree that the British Isles is probably the relevant unit here) are

- the number of professional quidditch teams and the likely fan base that
would be needed to support them (your figure would imply that there are less
than 500 wizards in Wales, for example, even though there are two
professional quidditch teams requiring support
- the diversity and size of the media (at least one radio station, the Daily
and Evening Prophet, the Quibbler, Witch Weekly, and a number of other
publications, plus a very healthy-seeming book market)
- the number of wizards who work for the Ministry - if they are working for
the bureaucracy, then a certain number of other wizards need to exist
working elsewhere in order to generate the cost of their wages

It's not I think a discussion that will ever generate a consensus!

But don't be deterred by that ( I never am...)

Cheers

Ffred

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