How to use bar charts to rank countries by one indicator and place a second indicator alongside it for context.
Bar charts are best for ranking.
Bar charts are useful to sort countries by the value for one indicator.
Here, countries are ranked by Population 65 and Older. Appearing at the top of the chart, Japan has the largest share of older adults (29%), followed by Bulgaria, Italy, and Portugal (24%).
A second indicator adds context.
Here, we chose the indicator Population 65 and Older, then added Fertility Rate as an additional column.
This keeps the ranking by older population, while showing another related measure beside it. As this result illustrates, many of the oldest countries also have low fertility rates.
Here, we sort Population 65 and Older by Fertility Rate.
In this view, countries are now arranged in ascending order of fertility rate, while the bars still show Population 65 and Older.
This enables us to see how fertility and population aging go together. Countries with lower fertility rates have relatively large older populations, although the pattern is not uniform across all countries.