New Set of Population Projections by Age, Sex, and Educational Attainment for More than 171 Countries of the World: Methods and Challenges

Samir K.C., Wittgenstein Centre (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU)
Erich Striessnig, Wittgenstein Centre (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU)

Population projection by United Nations assumes past levels of demographic development to continue for a long time and therefore do not consider much of the casual factors, proximate and distal, that might have had different pace of change in the past or will change differently in the future. As an alternative, we are currently working on a new set of assumptions about the future of fertility, mortality, migration, and (in addition) education in all countries of the world. The assumptions are reliant on an argument-based expert’s opinion. These assumptions are used to produce country-specific population projections by age, sex, and education (171 countries). The methodology along with the results of the projection for different demographic indicators will be presented in the paper. We expect that our methodology together with scenarios of educational attainment by age and sex, will yield a different picture of the future evolution of the World population.