[HPforGrownups] Wizarding numbers

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 83062

Robert wrote:

>Note also, you can't assume that the wizard population is in
>steady state, especially given their long lives.

Someone (Catlady I think) will debate that one with you, because there is a
theory that the WW population is now in steady state - if the number of
wizard borns declines, the number of muggle borns rises to compensate.

My own position would be that the ratio of wizards to muggles is probably
constant but possibly rises slightly, because of wizards' slight physical
advantage in terms of resilience.

>A century ago the proportion of muggle-borns may have been
>only 5% (because Hogwarts used to be more selective, or it may
>have been 50% (because magic genes are being culled out of the
>muggle population.)

A century is a pretty short time for the WW because of the longer life span.
If you accept a double span, then a WW "generation" is 60 rather than 30
years. That in turn means that the WW has been formally separated from the
muggle world for 5 generations.

However, think about the fact that since the end of the 17th century (and
quite possibly earlier in some cases), every muggle born wizard has been
whipped into the WW for safe keeping roughly from puberty. Because of the
lack of overlap between the two worlds, it's probably quite difficult for
someone from the WW to meet and form a relationship with a muggle, even if
they're not convinced by WW ideas of purity of blood. So I would say that
the proportion of muggle borns has actually declined steadily as wizardry
has become more secret.

>Nor is wizarding lifespan likely to be constant.

Figures for lifespan tend to depend on life_style_. We don't really have a
lot of canon to say whether or not wizards lived in healthier circumstances
than muggles in the past. It's interesting to theorise that possibly they
did (and still do) for several reasons. Firstly, magical healing techniques
seem to be far more radical and effective than muggle ones, even compared to
our own world. Secondly, because the application of magic to techniques of
industrial production would imply that it's far healthier to be a producer
in the WW than in the muggle world (and certainly far more so at the time of
the Industrial Revolution). Thirdly, because there don't seem to be the same
extremes of wealth and poverty in the WW. So maybe muggle lifespans have
"caught up". Maybe wizard lifespans _are_ quite constant.

>With their magic wizards may be able to sustain complex
>institutions with a much smaller population than muggles need.

The only proviso seems to be that magic can't create something (permanent)
out of nothing, so that things that need physical existence (like food,
clothes, and the like) do need to have a basis in physical reality and can't
just be magicked up

Cheers

Ffred

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