Kieran Healy
@hotdogsladies A nice big Baby Boom poster for you about the dread year of 1946 and the march of time in general, as per @RecDiffs discussion. Some more detail at https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2023/12/20/the-baby-boom-again/
Mar 16 at 12:56pmIvory for iOS
Show threadKim Scheinberg4d ago
@kjhealy @hotdogsladies @RecDiffs
When I was working on Wall St circa 2011, the "10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day for the next 18 years" and its ramifications were a popular focus of speeches and pitch decks
Show threadTom Lowe4d ago
@kjhealy @hotdogsladies @RecDiffs I wish people would zero their vertical axes and colour gradients.
Otherwise nice visual.
Show threadJoe Lion9h ago
@TomL @kjhealy @hotdogsladies @RecDiffs zeroing the vertical axis is only necessary for data that is measured relative to zero. Most bar charts do this in order to show absolute magnitude of data. Baby boom birth data is, by definition, interesting because it is a break from the norm. This is represented well with a line chart, centered around historical average births, where the boom years show a deviation from the norm.
Show threadJoe Lion9h ago
@TomL @kjhealy @hotdogsladies @RecDiffs The chart isn’t trying to show us how many absolute births they are during the boom years. It’s trying to show us how the boom years differ from the decades before and after. Same with the colors. If the colored gradiant started at zero by the time you get up to the range where actual data is, both of the normal years and the boom years would all be some shade of yellow, defeating the purpose