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use basic example

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_arithmetic_mean

ie:

germany % * germany’s population + france % * france’s population + …

divided by

germany’s population + france’s population + …

Quoted from knuck

So what should I do then ? I understood everyobody’s point, but what should I do to find the average unemployment rate in Europe ? Add all the total population of the European Union and divide it by the total population of unemployed people in Europe ?

Yup. Quite a bit of work I’d imagine, surely this statistic is already found somewhere?

Quoted from feeling

Sorry but you don’t understand what unemployment rate actually expresses. It reflects the ratio of unemployed people to the labor force. Total labor force is part of the unemployment rate, so there’s no reason to weigh according to work force! Population doesn’t have anything to do with it. Also, you can’t take total work force into account because this would suggest that Germany has more unemployed people than Slovakia. Considering the size of the work force, Germany doesn’t though. That’s what unemployment rate is about. If you took the absolute size of the work force into account when calculating an average unemployment rate, this would skew the result in favor of bigger countries. That is not the point of it. You want to find out what the average ratio of unemployed to the labor force is.

let’s say germany has 0% unemployment and 10 million people but I decide to create my own country with just me living in it, and I dont work
therefore the average unemployment rate in germany and my country is 50%
this is what you get when you dont consider the population (population meaning the total number of people capable of working)

Quoted from feeling

[…]
Hypothetical argument.

its your logic taken to an extreme

(also they make you look quite the sillybilly)

Quoted from knuck

So what should I do then ? I understood everyobody’s point, but what should I do to find the average unemployment rate in Europe ? Add all the total population of the European Union and divide it by the total population of unemployed people in Europe ?

I would say that really depends on for what your statistic is meant to be and what it should express.

If you want to show the number/percentage of unemployed people all over Europe, you should go with a weighted arithmetic mean.

If you want to show the situation more on a country basis I would simply add up the percentage values divided by the number of countries.

For Example:

If we have 10 fictional countries, 9 with a unemployment rate of 90% and 1 with 5%.
The 1 has 10.000 people and the other 9 only 10.

weighted: 10.000 + (9*10) / (9*9 + 500) ~ 0,58 = 5,8 %

not weighted: ((90% * 9) + 5%) / 10 = 81,5%

Most of the countries have a very high unempl. rate, disregarded the low population.
So IMHO the second number would reflect the situation better for a “country-based” overview.

If seperate countries don’t matter, only the total number of people. I would go for the first one.
But an arithmetic mean is only a small part of statistics. There might be much more appropriate methods to express your numbers.

Hope this makes sense :E

Quoted from feeling

Online behavior when you know you’re wrong or don’t have any valid arguments :)

heh
also i clearly used the word sillybilly