May 30, 2014 | News | Suessmilch Lecture

Probabilistic Population Projections for All Countries

On June 2, 2014 Adrian E. Raftery from the University of Washington will give a talk at the MPIDR. He will focus an new method for population projections used by the United Nations to produce their most recent projections of the world population.

Adrian E. Raftery is Professor of Statistics and Sociology and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences and the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington (UW). He works on the development of new statistical methods for the social, environmental and health sciences. Much of his current research is on statistical demography. He is currently on leave from UW and is serving as E.T.S. Walton Visiting Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, University College Dublin, Ireland.

Abstract
Projections of countries' future populations, broken down by age and sex, are widely used for planning and research. They are mostly done deterministically, but there is a widespread need for probabilistic projections. I will describe a Bayesian statistical method for probabilistic population projections for all countries. These new methods have been used by the United Nations to produce their most recent population projections for all countries. The results suggest that world population will increase more than had recently been believed likely, reaching between 9 and 13 billion by the end of the century, with no end to population growth this century. The population of Africa, in particular, is likely to grow, from about 1 billion now to between 3 and 5 billion. The number of working age people per retired person will probably decline dramatically in most countries, including developing countries, over the coming decades. The results also suggest that the traditional UN high and low variants underestimate uncertainty for high fertility countries, and overstate uncertainty for low fertility countries. I will comment on implications for carbon emissions this century.

Time and Venue

Monday, June, 2, 2014, 4 p.m. in the Institute´s Auditorium