How can I avoid the repetition of "population" in this text?

Question

In the following sentence, is it OK if I remove the second "population" from the sentence?

Overall, the Italian population was older than the Yemenis population.

Overall, the Italian population was older than the Yemenis.

I think we do not need to repeat the second population, Am I correct? In fact, I think that second sentence is better than the first one.

I see the problem here stemming from the use of "age of a population". I don't think a population can have an "age". It can have a size, it can have an age structure, but only people have an age. Would a rephrasing like "The median age of Italians was more than that of Yemenis" Or "Yemenis were younger than Italians, on average" — James K, Feb 24 at 17:20

Ethan Bolker · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-24 14:53:32Z

1

The second is not quite correct.

You could say

Overall, the Italian population was older than that of Yemen.

In the first sentence I think you need

Overall, the Italian population was older than the Yemeni population.

since you are modifying to the single noun "population", not the people as a collection.

answered Feb 24 at 14:53

Ethan Bolker

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Ronald Sole · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-24 14:53:57Z

The answer has to do with the part of speech of the word Yemenis.

If it is an adjective, similar to British, French or Italian, 2. is fine.

If, however, Yemenis is the plural form of a proper noun, equivalent to Britons or Germans, it doesn't work.

By way of illustration, it's fine to say:

The Italian population is older than the German.

But wrong to say:

The Italian population is older than the Germans.

I suspect that the correct way to phrase the sentence (to avoid the repetition in 1.) would be:

The Italian population is older than the Yemeni.

But I am not sufficiently familiar with the use of Yemeni and Yeminis.

2 Answers 2