Per prima cosa calcola la decade per ogni riga
select floor(year(`year`) / 10) * 10 as decade
from tbl_people
e quindi utilizzare questo risultato intermedio per contare SQL Fiddle
select count(*), decade, decade + 9
from (select floor(year(`year`) / 10) * 10 as decade
from tbl_people) t
group by decade
o questo SQL Fiddle , se vuoi il decennio in una colonna
select count(*) as count, concat(decade, '-', decade + 9) as year
from (select floor(year(`year`) / 10) * 10 as decade
from tbl_people) t
group by decade