No, an average of 43 is woefully old for any time’s standard. I don’t know where you are getting your data, but Red Army during WW2 had an average age of 24-25 (according to Erich Wollenberg’s The Red Army), and the US army was 26. Most armies keep their mobilized to under-40s. Just because some older guys can be assigned to support duties doesn’t mean they are conscripted in mass numbers. That’s not how statistics work.
43 means you have chewed through your 18-40 year olds. It means that, at best your army has as many 18-40 year olds as it has 41-80 year olds. An average of 43 means that for every 18 year old in the army, there’s an 80 year old as well. Obviously that’s not the case. But it illustrates that the average Ukrainian fighter is between 30-50, which means most of the 18-30 year old males are either dead or wounded and incapable to fight.
That’s why averages are horrible ways to analyze group makeup and demographic information. Medians are by far more relevant, as averages commonly skew upward.
No, an average of 43 is woefully old for any time’s standard. I don’t know where you are getting your data, but Red Army during WW2 had an average age of 24-25 (according to Erich Wollenberg’s The Red Army), and the US army was 26. Most armies keep their mobilized to under-40s. Just because some older guys can be assigned to support duties doesn’t mean they are conscripted in mass numbers. That’s not how statistics work.
43 means you have chewed through your 18-40 year olds. It means that, at best your army has as many 18-40 year olds as it has 41-80 year olds. An average of 43 means that for every 18 year old in the army, there’s an 80 year old as well. Obviously that’s not the case. But it illustrates that the average Ukrainian fighter is between 30-50, which means most of the 18-30 year old males are either dead or wounded and incapable to fight.
That’s why averages are horrible ways to analyze group makeup and demographic information. Medians are by far more relevant, as averages commonly skew upward.