MPIDR Working Paper

Inverse problems in demography and biodemography

Abstract

Inverse problems play important role in science and engineering. Estimation of boundary conditions on the temperature distribution inside a metallurgical furnace, reconstruction of tissue density inside body on plane projections obtained with x-rays are examples. The similar problems exist in demography in the form of projection and estimation of population age distributions and age-specific mortality rates. The problem of residual demography is estimation of demographic process in wild nature on its manifestation in marked subjects with unobserved age, which again is inverse problem. The article presents examples and the ways of solution the inverse problems in demography and biodemography, discusses the ways of improving results by combination of demographic and genetic data.