Week 25: The Demography Matters World Cup Simulator

(The final World Cup themed post, promise)

I did not expect the soccer X demography post to be so popular! I aim to please, so will conclude this week with the Demography Matters World Cup bracket showdown, of course. What happens if countries go head-to-head on who has better life expectancy or favorable dependency ratios instead of how well one kicks a ball around (reductive, but where’s the lie?)

All credit goes to my husband (Ekim) who thought about this idea and helped me create a simulator that you can play with, below.

But first: thinking about a demographic showdown is cute and all, but how do you actually figure out the specifics? We can use a whole host of indicators for starters. Should they be restricted to the ones we have discussed in earlier posts in this Substack? Should they include non-demographic variables? (including measures of governance for example changes things dramatically!) Should they focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) more broadly? Either way we go, how do you ascertain thresholds for some of them to determine winners? I can’t say I figured it all out, but here is one attempt. If you are unsatisfied with the result, you can play with the simulator yourself. Toggle between indicators to see which one moves the dial in different ways, assign different weights based on your perceived importance, and so on.

Spoiler alert: no matter how we played it, our favorites, Türkiye did not come close to winning. Alas. Better luck next time!

The Indicators

As you read last week, we have gone through a whole host of demographic indicators since January. For this World Cup showdown, I thought it made sense to stick to demography and not expand out to SDGs, economics, governance, and other areas. So, here are the main indicators and their relevant winning thresholds:

1. Under-5 Mortality Rate (U5MR):

   • Lower wins;

   • Measures child survival and reflects the social, economic and environmental conditions in which children (and others in society) live, including their health care.

   • Data: UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME)

2. Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR):

   • Lower wins;

   • Measures the risk of death during pregnancy and childbirth or within the first 42 days of birth. It is a critical indicator of a country’s healthcare system quality and women’s overall health

   • Data: World Health Organization

3. Human Development Index (HDI):

   • Higher wins;

   • Composite metric tracking life expectancy, mean years of schooling, and Gross National Income (GNI) per capita.

   • Source: UN Development Programme (UNDP)

4. Total Fertility Rate (TFR):

   • Proximity to 2.1 (replacement level) wins. We can argue about this one - I just couldn’t think of another threshold that would make sense for this game;

   • Measures average number of children a woman has, but is really an indicator of long-term population growth or decline, socioeconomic development, and female empowerment

   • Source: UN World Population Prospects

5. Net Migration Rate (NMR): Higher wins;

   • Higher wins;

   • It is the ratio of net migration during a year to the average population, expressed per 1,000 persons; positive migration shows a society’s power to attract global talent and buffer local workforce declines.

   • Source: UN World Population Prospects

6. Total Dependency Ratio (TDR):

   • Lower wins;

   • Number of dependents (under 15 and over 64) per 100 working age people. Lower dependency ratio means more workers supporting fewer dependents.

   • Source: UN World Population Prospects

Scoring

The Group Stage: Just like the real World Cup, the 48 teams play round-robin matches within their groups. A win gets you 3 points, a draw gets you 1 point, and a loss gets you 0 points. The top 2 teams from each group, plus the 8 best third-place teams, advance.

The Knockout stage: In the single-elimination rounds, we can’t have draws. If a match ends in a tied score, the engine immediately triggers a sequence of Golden Tiebreakers to determine who advances:

• First Tiebreaker (HDI): The higher human development score wins.

• Second Tiebreaker (U5MR): If still tied, the country with lower child mortality wins.

• Third Tiebreaker (TDR): If still tied, the country with the lower working dependency ratio takes the match.

The Simulator!

You can look at the screenshots below to see how I did the weighting and which indicators I used. There’s also a panel (dossier inspector) which lets you look at these indicators for all the 48 countries. You can toggle between the Group Stage and Knockout Bracket (top right) for easier viewing.

Drumroll please - My winner was Norway! Below the screenshot, you will see a link to play yourself.

Let me know how your brackets shake out! Wish I had included some other indicators? Let me know - I can always update this.