Refining Population Projection Models

By 2030 the number of people with secondary and college educations in China will be higher than the number in the United States and Western Europe combined, reports Dr. Wolfgang Lutz, a demographer who serves as Director of the Population Project at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Although he noted that this forecast could still be influenced by education policies, Dr. Lutz cited the China research as an intriguing example of the feasibility and usefulness of new population projection models that incorporate information about education levels to anticipate trends in human capital formation.

Developing innovative models to address complex social problems is central to the mission of IIASA, an independent, non-governmental, interdisciplinary research institution that specializes in natural and social scientific research methods for use by policymakers and scientists. The American Academy sponsors the US Committee for IIASA, which is supported by the National Science Foundation. Fellow M. Gordon Wolman (Johns Hopkins University) serves as committee chair.

For more information, call Margaret Goud Collins, Program Director of the US Committee for IIASA, at (617) 576-5019 or email mcollins@amacad.org.

Back to the November 2000 Newsletter