Demography

Objectives

This course has two main objectives: firstly, to present the methods used to calculate the main demographic indicators in continuous time in order to construct a classic demographic balance sheet for an ad-hoc area; and secondly, to provide an understanding of the possible causes and consequences of the demographic phenomena observed.

Course outline

1. Demographic accounting
The balancing equation and growth rates
Rates and person-years
The Lexis diagram
Rates vs. probabilities
Age-specific rates
Age-standardization
Decomposition of differences between rates

2. Life-table construction
A toy example
Period life-tables
The issues of the ax , rate/probability conversion and open-ended interval
Life-table in a continuous frame
Life-table as a stationary population

3. Demographic models for aggregate data
Parametric models over age
Relational models
Lee-Carter model and its variations

4. Smoothing methods in mortality
Quick Smoothing
Generalized Additive Model: a short overview
Direct Smoothing
P-splines

5. Fertility and reproduction
Period fertility rates
Cohort Fertility
Tempo effects
Reproduction measures
Coale-McNeil and Coale-Trussell models
Henry’s “Natural Fertility”

6. Population projection
Cohort component method
Projection matrix and age-classified model
Forecasting model parameters
The Lee-Carter model for forecasting mortality

Prerequisites

2A statistics syllabus (linear and non-linear modelling, data analysis, etc.)