Abstract:
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The core task of demography is to estimate current and past population by age and sex, and to project it into the future. Demography is one of the most successful areas of social science: its outputs are used by governments at all levels, by researchers and the private sector. The traditional methods for demographic estimation and projection have been based on deterministic mathematical models and are not statistical for the most part. However, in 2015 the United Nations adopted Bayesian methods for producing their official population projections for all countries. We will discuss some of these current efforts to put population estimation and projection on a sound statistical basis.
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