A brief guide to producing a national population projection

Wilson, Tom; Rees, Philip

doi:10.37970/aps.v5i1.84

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(26 reference statements)

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“…Both current and synthetic historical population forecasts for Australia were prepared using a cohort-component projection model in which the population was divided by sex and single years of age (Wilson and Rees 2021). There is a small difference with a "standard" cohort-component model in the way international migration is handled.…”

Section: Data and Methods For Preparing Forecastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualizing the Shelf Life of Population Forecasts: A Simple Approach to Communicating Forecast Uncertainty

Wilson

2024

Journal of Official Statistics

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It is widely appreciated that population forecasts are inherently uncertain. Researchers have responded by quantifying uncertainty using probabilistic forecasting methods. Yet despite several decades of development, probabilistic forecasts have gained little traction outside the academic sector. Therefore, this article suggests an alternative and simpler approach to estimating and communicating uncertainty which might be helpful for population forecast practitioners and users. Drawing on the naïve forecasts idea of Alho, it suggests creating “synthetic historical forecast errors” by running a regular deterministic projection model many times over recent decades. Then, borrowing from perishable food terminology, the “shelf life” of forecast variables, the number of years into the future the forecast is likely to remain “safe for consumption” (within a specified error tolerance), is estimated from the “historical” errors. The shelf lives are then applied to a current set of forecasts and presented in a simple manner in graphs and tables of forecasts using color-coding. The approach is illustrated through a case study of 2021-based population forecasts for Australia. It´s concluded that the approach offers a relatively straightforward way of estimating and communicating population forecast uncertainty.

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Section: Data and Methods For Preparing Forecastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualizing the Shelf Life of Population Forecasts: A Simple Approach to Communicating Forecast Uncertainty

Wilson

2024

Journal of Official Statistics

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“…The demographic scenarios in this paper are based on population projections for Australia from 2020 to 2120 produced with a standard cohort-component population projection model ( 27 ). Three possible future trajectories for each of the demographic processes of fertility, mortality, and overseas migration were formulated (low, medium, and high), resulting in a total of 27 projections.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Demographic and Economic Change on the Australian Generational Economy: Financial Sustainability, Intergenerational Inequality, and Material Living Standards

Rice

Wilson²,

Temple³

et al. 2022

Front. Public Health

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The generational economy—which is that aspect of the economy that pertains to the economic activities of, and the economic relationships between, different ages and generations—can be evaluated on the basis of a number of different criteria. The most critical of these include the financial sustainability of the generational economy, the intergenerational inequality that the generational economy creates, and the material living standards associated with the generational economy. How the generational economy performs in terms of these three criteria is, moreover, shaped by underlying processes of demographic and economic change. This paper examines how the Australian generational economy can be expected to perform in coming decades in terms of financial sustainability, intergenerational inequality, and material living standards. How the performance of the Australian generational economy is shaped by variations in fertility, mortality, overseas migration, and labour-income growth is also assessed. The results reported in the paper indicate that, because of population aging, consumption can only grow at a substantially lower rate than labour income if financial sustainability is to be maintained. These results also suggest that increasing overseas migration is a distinctly useful policy tool for meeting the challenges posed by population aging, since increasing overseas migration both increases material living standards and decreases intergenerational inequality.

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“…Immigration assumptions were prepared as birthplace-specific age-specific immigration flows, while emigration assumptions were projected using birthplace-specific age-specific emigration rates. This is a common approach in national population projections (Wilson and Rees 2021). Both immigration and emigration were assumed to drop dramatically in 2020 due to the closure of the Australian border in March 2020.…”

Section: Projection Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ageing of Asian migrant populations in Australia: projections and implications for aged care services

Wilson

Temple

Brijnath

et al. 2021

Asian Population Studies

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Until the 1970s the Asia-born population of Australia remained small due to the racist White Australia Policy which denied entry to non-Europeans. Following its abolition in the early 1970s, Asian immigration progressively intensified over the subsequent decades, and in 2016 the Asia-born population of the country reached a total of 2.7 million, though the older population aged 65+ remained relatively small. This paper presents new projections of Australia's older Asia-born populations from 2016 to 2056 created with a new birthplace projection model. The results show substantial growth of the older Asia-born population can be expected over coming decades, along with changing composition by country of birth. The Asia-born proportion of Australia's older population overall is projected to rise from just 6 per cent in 2016 to 19 per cent in 2056. These coming demographic changes present service providers and policy makers with a number of challenges and opportunitiesin particular relating to the provision of culturally appropriate residential and community aged care.

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A brief guide to producing a national population projection

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Visualizing the Shelf Life of Population Forecasts: A Simple Approach to Communicating Forecast Uncertainty

Visualizing the Shelf Life of Population Forecasts: A Simple Approach to Communicating Forecast Uncertainty

The Impact of Demographic and Economic Change on the Australian Generational Economy: Financial Sustainability, Intergenerational Inequality, and Material Living Standards

The ageing of Asian migrant populations in Australia: projections and implications for aged care services

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