Population Projections Introduction DemProj Version 4 A Computer Program for Making Population Projections Facilitator: Tey Nai Peng 20 th and 21 st May 2007

Why project population? Basis for planning – jobs, schools, housing, food and other service Policy dialogue – being aware and preparing for future problems – depleting forest To solve future problems – immunization program, number of children and etc

Producing alternative projections It is based on assumptions about future levels of fertility, mortality and migration thus projection can change accordingly – Low, medium and high level of projections Varying growth rate can be used for population – Low growth, high growth and etc produces different level of projections

Steps in Making a Population Projection – seven key steps Select geographic area – Normally made at the national level – Can be made for any geographical areas Urban areas Capital cities Provinces Districts – For example: projection of population for rural areas to supply sufficient number of school teachers

Determine the period of projection – Starting from a base year to some years in the future – The base year is set based on data availability. for example: 1991 census data for Malaysia – Number of years to project depends on the purpose of projection For example: – Planning – normally requires 5 years projection – Policy dialogue – requires 10 to 30 years projection

Collect Data – Base year population data by five year age group by sex – Good and reliable projection depends on reliable base year data – Data required on: Number of people by age and sex Total Fertility rate Life expectancy at birth

Make assumptions – About the future levels Total Fertility rate Life expectancy at birth International migration Assumptions regarding the most appropriate model tables for fertility and mortality is required

Examine Projections – Examine to check if the assumptions are acceptable – Evaluate the consequences of the alternative population projections

Make alternative projections – Projections for various scenarios High, medium, low fertility High, medium, low mortality High, medium, low migration and etc

What is DemProj? A demographic model in Spectrum, a computer program for making population projections for countries or regions. It requires information on the following as input: – Number of people by age and sex, TFR, the age distribution of fertility, life expectancy at birth by sex, appropriate model life table, magnitude of international migration.

What is DemProj? Using Demproj the population can be projected according to age and sex for a duration of 150 future years. Can also project urban and rural population Can be linked to other models in Spectrum such as: – AIM (Demographic impact of Aids), – Famplan (family planning service requirement to achieve demographic and health goals) and – RAPID (The costs and benefits of family planning programs and the socioeconomic impacts of high fertility and rapid population growth).

uses data that are readily available easy to operate it requires little demographic experience was produced in 1980 DemProj