> but per capita has always seemed more important to me
> i.e. the Italy and Russia comparison as liknande size economies
Every time I hear "hur-dur economy less than Italy" (mostly on Reddit, ofc) I always remember a funny trivia: there are more pensioners in Russia (40M+) than everyone in 15-65 y/o gap in Italy (36M).
So yes, economy size without a tie to the population size and social, geographic and other measurements is.. misleading at best.
Yes, that's the kind of trivia I find puzzling as Italy has a higher percentage of people over 65.