The Muggle-Born Population

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

In some interview, J.K. Rowling apparently said that Britain's wizarding population is roughly divided into 25% muggle-born, 50% half-blood, and 25% pureblood. However, while JKR may have said that 25% of witches and wizards are muggle-born, this is not what she has actually shown in canon.

In Harry's year at Hogwarts, there are only two confirmed muggle-born students in canon: Hermione Granger and Justin Finch-Fletchley. JKR's early class list also shows Hannah Abbott and Terry Boot as muggle-borns, but she apparently later either forgot this or changed her mind, for we learn in DH that some of Hannah's family is buried in a wizarding cemetery, and Terry was able to attend Hogwarts when Voldemort was in control. JKR originally imagined Harry's class as having 40 students, but only 30 students are ever mentioned in canon, and only 25 are mentioned elsewhere besides the sorting ceremony. 2 out of 40 students would mean that 5% of the class is definitely muggle-born. 2 out of 30 would mean that 6.66% is muggle-born. 2 out of 25 would make 8% of the class muggle-born. Any of these percentages is much lower than 25%.

(Note: Apparently I can't count, so I've had to change these percentages a few times. Hopefully they're correct now.)

Furthermore, (as far as I can remember) we only meet 3 other muggle-born students at Hogwarts: Penelope Clearwater and the two Creevey Brothers. And we only know of three muggle-borns from the previous generation: Lily Evans, Ted Tonks, and Dirk Cresswell. Again, these numbers suggest that the percentage of wizards and witches who are muggle-born is much lower than 25%

ETA: Oryx reminded me Add Mary McDonalds and the Mary who was on trial during the trio's Ministry invasion (though the two may be the same person, under her maiden and married names).

Another sign of a low percentage of muggle-borns is the WW's ignorance of muggle culture and technology. If muggle-borns were really 25% of the wizarding population, I believe that they would have had significantly more influence on wizarding culture. Wizards would have assimilated and adapted more muggle sports, muggle board games, film, television, etc.

The data I used for these calculations can be found here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0Asq6Ul6gdxBCdDlMRHoxU0NVaHA5SXQtQzRiRFI0Smc&output=html If the blood status is in parentheses, that means it was shown that way in JKR's notes, but unverified or contradicted in canon.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Add Mary McDonalds and the Mary who was on trial during the trio's Ministry invasion (though the two may be the same person, under her maiden and married names).

But we see how after the exclusion of Muggle-borns Wizarding society keeps working as usual, nor does Harry notice anyone who looks like they are originally from the Muggle world in places like the QWC (where wizards were supposed to be trying to pass for Muggles).

Part of it is because Rowling thinks Muggles and Muggle-borns are too 'ordinary' and not worth writing about. But I tend think even if there were a handful of Muggle-borns among the students who didn't join the DA there weren't more than 2-3 of them in Harry's year. (Though it would be funny if all the non-Slytherins who were not in the DA were Muggle-borns.)

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

>>>>Add Mary McDonalds and the Mary who was on trial during the trio's Ministry invasion (though the two may be the same person, under her maiden and married names).

Oops! Thanks!

>>>>But we see how after the exclusion of Muggle-borns Wizarding society keeps working as usual

Yes, exactly! If a quarter of the population were suddenly excluded it would be a major upheaval.

>>>> But I tend think even if there were a handful of Muggle-borns among the students who didn't join the DA there weren't more than 2-3 of them in Harry's year.

I think there would most likely only be one more muggle-born in Harry's year, two at most. My theory is that if only 7.4% of the students we know about are muggle-born, then they probably only make up between 7% and 8% of the entire class... 10% at the very most.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, the people we don't hear about in Harry's year are the mysteriously disappearing 2 Gryffindor girls and those members of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw who were not in the DA. (As well as some of the Slytherin girls - we have interview information that Daphne was a pureblood, Milicent has a relative on the Black Family Tree but was a half-blood in the original notes, and there were another Slytherin girl or two on the notes who didn't make it to canon.)

The best I can do about the Gryffindor girls is to think they went every night to their homes in Hogsmeade so they weren't around for out-of-hours activities like the DA. (Or their families objected to Harry, but they were less voiceful about it than Seamus.) In any case, the explanation involves having magical relatives.

But in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw - how were kids recruited to the DA? I think Hermione invited the prefects, whom she was getting to know better that year, and they invited their friends. So Ernie and Hannah invited Justin, their friend since COS (or earlier, of course). Susan may have joined as a friend, following her aunt's tales about Harry's trial, or in memory of her deceased uncle, Order member Edgar Bones (or a combination of those reasons). Zach seems to have joined like Cho, because of Cedric. They may have been on the Quidditch team together. Michael was invited by Ginny, Terry came either as Michael's or Anthony's friend. Padma didn't bring anyone new - either she mostly hangs out with her sister (and Lavender), or with the boys, or with the books in the library.

IOW those Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who did not come to the founding meeting of the DA were the ones who were not connected socially to the prefects, the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, nor had relatives in the first Order. So there may have been more Muggle-borns among them. I'd say another 2 Muggle-borns in Hufflepuff and 1, maybe 2 in Ravenclaw, for up to 6 Muggle-borns total or 15% of 40, at my most generous.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

There were three girls sorted into Ravenclaw who did not participate in the DA: Mandy Brocklehurst, Morag MacDougal, and Lisa Turpin. Mandy is listed as a half-blood on the class list. Morag's and Lisa's blood status are unknown. It's possible the they are muggle-born. On the other hand, it's possible that they weren't invited because their families were known Voldemort or Ministry sympathizers.

The other two students who were sorted were Sally-Anne Perks and a student with the last name Moon. The class list doesn't show their house or their blood status.

8 students on the class list didn't make it into canon. We know the blood status of 4 of them, and one, Kevin Entwhistle, is muggle-born in Ravenclaw.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

More today...

I think 15% is still too high based on what we've see in canon. However, one thing that might be worth considering is that there are possibly a lower number of students than normal in Harry's year because of VoldWar I. If this is the case, we might see a higher than normal percentage of muggle-born students around Harry's age. Like, it might be normal to have 5 or 6 muggle-borns in every year, but might also be normal to have 50 to 60 students altogether in every year, rather than 40.

[sunnyskywalker]

If the DEs during VoldWar I had actually been carrying out their Pureblood agenda competently, they might also have tracked down and killed every Muggle-born kid under age 11 (and thus less protected than the kids in Hogwarts 10 mos./year) they could find. (Maybe they managed to get a peek at the Hogwarts Quill records, but not long enough to catch all the names. Something, anyway.) So it might also be normal for there to be 50-60 kids per year total, with 10-15 of them Muggleborn.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

that's a good point. :)

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if they didn't do that, then you might well expect a *higher* than average percentage of Muggleborns in and around Harry's year. People in the WW had probably been having fewer children during the first war, and more than that, some of the WW's children were probably killed. Neither of these two factors would've affected the number of Muggleborns, unless Muggleborns under 11 were specifically targeted.

[sunnyskywalker]

I was thinking they could have targeted the ones under 11, if any of the DEs actually meant to stop them from ever learning about or entering the wizarding world in the first place. Whether they did so we don't know of course, but it seems like something at least one DE would have wanted to do. But there's no way to be sure.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

But we see how after the exclusion of Muggle-borns Wizarding society keeps working as usual

Clever deduction!