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During 90s, the muggle population was over 5 billion. But, wizard population wasn't even 500k i.e. 0.01%: During the events of the Harry Potter series what is the total population of Wizards/Witches globally?
That's hell of a monstrous difference.

If we look at wizards, they have better odds of survival. Forget about past, they have better medicines etc even than modern muggle world. They could also dominate other species easily. They could better survive in adverse situations than their muggle counterparts.

Also, we didn't see any kind of impotence disease (even probability of squib birth was very low) or population control campaign (which didn't have any point anyway) in wizarding world. Weasleys had dozens of kids, for example.

Then, why is wizard population much less than muggle population?

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  • I feel like this is answered in the second answer to the duplicate question
    – Edlothiad
    Jan 9, 2018 at 15:47
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    Maybe marrying within the family tree so many times might have led to some unforeseeable problems? idk, like infertility maybe?
    – Shreedhar
    Jan 9, 2018 at 16:00
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    They had access to reliable birth control way before muggles. Jan 9, 2018 at 18:13
  • @Edlothiad I agree, in fact I'd put it down to a combination of wizards having little in the way of formal society/education (coupled with the inherent dangers of being an untrained wizard) and humanity's treatment of magic users (we know IRL that witches and such were actively hunted for a big chunk of our history, in a world where actual witches existed you have to assume that accounts for a lot of deaths). Both of these likely lead to wizard population growth trailing that of muggles.
    – delinear
    Jan 10, 2018 at 13:04

1 Answer 1

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Wizard wars

Potters vs. Dursleys. Both Dursley parents are alive. Both Potter parents are dead, killed by other wizards. So while wizards may be able to survive specific threats better, in practice, they survive less often. Because someone like Voldemort doesn't regard muggles as worth killing unless they have some personal relationship. It is other wizards that they find threatening.

It's not just the Potters. The Longbottoms are another example. Not dead, but not reproducing either. And doubtless there are many other dead wizards that we don't know because they died off camera without progeny.

Magical threats

Wizards also face magical threats that muggles don't. Sure, a muggle is less able to face a dragon, but in practice, the wizards put themselves between the muggles and the dragon. Because the wizards don't want the much more numerous muggles finding out about magic.

Beyond all that, the wizards know how to find dragons and can use magic to go places that muggles cannot. Wizards face more dangers than muggles.

The Weasleys are an exception

Yes, a wizarding family can have more kids. Just as first world countries could have more kids than third world countries. But in practice, we see the reverse. Most families in rich countries (Japan, Europe) only have one or two kids, below replacement on average. While poor countries have large families. Muggles have historically had more kids than wizards.

Yes, the Weasleys are a big family. But many other wizards are only children, e.g. Neville Longbottom, Scorpius Malfoy (so far), Draco Malfoy, and Lucius Malfoy. Some wizarding couples have no children, e.g. Bellatrix and Rudolphus Lestrange. And not all wizards marry, e.g. Albus Dumbledore and his siblings (or their aunt Honoria), Sirius Black, Radastan Lestrange, and Barty Crouch, Jr. (another only child).

We don't have statistics on wizarding families as far as I know. So this tends to produce a lot of anecdotes. Is only child Harry an exception or common? The way that wizards act, he seems more common than not.

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    I don't think ocassional rogue wizards could do more damage than muggle world wars and other nation-level countless battles.. Jan 9, 2018 at 16:52
  • I love your answer!! :)
    – Obsidia
    Jan 9, 2018 at 18:01

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