By Hraken Khador (Pedantic Demography)
Dwarven Demographics
While Surceanus of Cyfaraun did great work in documenting for Auran readers the general nature of Dwarven demographics, his work in some places shows a degree of unfamiliarity with the subject that, while understandable in an outsider, may lead his readers to certain incorrect conclusions about the nature of dwarven society. This document attempts to correct these misapprehensions.
Birthrates
By far the greatest of his errors is his stating that dwarven women become fertile at the age of 15. While technically correct in that womanly cycles typically begin at this age, it is no more correct to say that dwarven women are mature at this age than to say human women are mature at 13. While I am aware that some Aurans marry off their daughters at such a tender age, we dwarves, on account of the superior age and refinement of our civilization, do not marry our daughters off until they reach the age of 25, which the indispensable Monstrous Manual gives this dwarf to believe is equal to a human age of 18. This is not solely because of the greater commitment to Law that dwarves embody, but also practical concerns. My understanding is that human “teen-agers” experience a somewhat elevated risk of pregnancy complications. In dwarven women, this is true to a far greater extent, with shockingly high rates of stillbirths and infertility among those who become pregnant at such age. As such, the standard practice in every Vault I have read records from is to debut the girl to wider society at age 15, but entertain no firm commitments until 20, then set an engagement a year to three afterwards, then marry the second day after the 25th birthday of the girl-now-woman (the day after being dedicated to recovery from the birthday festivities, owing to our way of marking one’s age).
Surceanus calculates that a pregnancy occurs every 15 years, and that 4 pregnancies per woman is typical, but he arrives at this correct conclusion via incorrect methods. For one, unlike Elven slatterns, dwarvish women cannot simply become pregnant by willing it! Thus, there are generally 2 years of attempting to conceive, a year (actually less) of pregnancy, two of breastfeeding, and ten of waiting for safety. Surceanus reports a twelve-year gap after weening, which is correctly the gap between weening and pregnancy, as well as the considered wisdom of the ancestors on the gap to be had between the end of pregnancy and attempting to conceive, but not the gap between weening and attempted conception.
Thus, a typical dwarven woman will become pregnant at 27, 42, 57, and 72. As dwarvish womanly cycles end nearly invariably at the age of 75, four children are born to such a blessed mother. If the mother is somewhat tardy in conception, say by a year in each case, then births would occur at 28, 44, 60, and 75, which cuts right against the edge of menopause. However, such sluggish conception is nearly invariably associated with delayed menopause, so the net is a consistent 4 children per women. Twins, as Aurans understand them, are extraordinarily rare.
However, this rosy view of dwarven reproduction does not take into account the tragic loss of many children to stillbirth. Approximate one in ten meet this fate, which reduces the number of children per woman to 3.6. However, the incidence of stillbirth further reduces the number of children by preventing pregnancies entirely, via infertility.
Dwarven infertility is nearly always a consequence of a stillbirth, and is associated with excessive and uncontrolled bleeding in the first few days after a lost child. In approximately half of all cases, no such bleeding will occur despite the child’s death, and it is considered safe for the mother to again attempt pregnancy after the standard interval of waiting. In the other half, the uncontrolled bleeding occurs, and concludes with the total end of the mother’s cycles. This tragedy comes with an increased connection to the Maker’s Flame, and in some cases devotee’s thereof are able to repair their wombs (which is otherwise curiously resistant to the divine miracles of repair disfigurement and disability and restore life and limb, lending credence to the notion that the ailment is partially spiritual), but this occurs quite rarely, and often late enough in the mother’s life that she may no longer conceive despite the mending of her soul. A very small number of infertilities occur after a successful birth, but these effectively have no effect on demographic projections, such is their rarity. It is, however, a common motif in dwarven song, symbolizing hope rising amid tragedy, or alternately a narrow path to survival, but is not nearly as frequent as the songwriters would have it.
Thus, one in twenty pregnancies end all future childbearing, and one in ten are stillborn. We may thus easily calculate that the average number of children had by a dwarven woman will be 3.3388875. As one in three are female, and the generational length is 27 years, the dwarven population increases at a rate of 0.418% per annum. (note: child mortality among dwarven women is effectively nil. We take care of our children!)
Population Pyramid
The structure of the dwarven population, absent violent death, can thus be calculated. For old-age mortality I relied on Surceanus’s work, noting that dwarves are generally of a greater robustness than humans, and that dwarven women tend to live longer than dwarven me, much like in humans.
In such a peaceful, idyllic vault, 22.83% of the dwarven population will be 15 or younger, and 15.22% from 15-25, for a total 38.05%. The Great Sage Arxus Komean, writer of the Monstrous Manual, gives a number of juvenile dwarves per vault equal to 37.50% of the population; I can only assume that either the vaults he surveyed were slightly unfortunate, or zealous mothers hid some of their children from a stranger. He gives a population fraction of 26.56% “noncombatants”, which, while thoroughly grudge-worthy, is quite close to the 27.76% of the vault that is over 75. Of these, 17.09% of the vault is of ages 76-115, while 10.67% of the vault is from 116-150 (note that all of these numbers assume a negligible number of dwarves over 150). The remaining population breaks neatly into 17.09% aged 26-50 and a like percentage aged 51-75, assuming stagnant population growth.