The age group composition of populations varies substantially across continents and within countries, and is linked to levels of development, health status and poverty. The subnational variability in the shape of the population pyramid as well as the respective dependency ratio are reflective of the different levels of development of a country and are drivers for a country’s economic prospects and health burdens. WorldPop’s assembly of subnational population pyramid data has here been used to produce continent-wide subnational scale dependency ratio datasets, with full details found in Pezzulo et al.