Population trends
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This article discusses the results of a questionnaire completed by the National Population Projections Expert Advisory Group in spring 2007. As well as asking for the experts' opinions on the most likely future levels of key fertility, mortality and migration indicators, views were collected about a wide range of factors that may have an influence on key demographic variables over the next 25 years.
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The population of the UK is growing at the fastest rate since the 1960s, increasing on average by 0.5 per cent each year. The fastest growing age group is those aged 85 years and older, who now represent just over 2 per cent of the population, compared to just over 1 per cent in 1982. In 2007, continued increase in the population over state pension age meant for the first time this sub-group of the population exceeded the number aged under 16. ⋯ This is the second in a series of annual reports on the population of the UK, providing an overview of the latest statistics on the population, and focussing on a specific theme. This year's theme is the ageing population, with different topics to be covered in future years. The report highlights the work being taken forward as part of the National Statistics Centre for Demography (NSCD) work programme to understand the social and demographic impacts of an ageing society.
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Comparative Study
UK national population projections in perspective: how successful compared to those in other European countries?
Compared to population forecasts of other European countries, those made in the United Kingdom during the past 30 years had somewhat larger forecast errors for fertility and smaller errors for mortality. Migration forecasts in the UK were about as accurate as the European average. After controlling for various effects such as relative data volatility both at the time a projection is made and during the period of the projection, there is no indication that recent forecasts in European countries have been more accurate than older ones. Hence population forecasts are intrinsically uncertain, and a forecast for the UK in the form of probability distributions is presented.
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This article discusses early thinking on the options for the population bases to be used in the 2011 Census. It describes some of the work being conducted to enable a decision about bases to be reached, including historic and international reviews of censuses. It also discusses the implications that our rapidly changing society has for census planning.
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Interest has been growing steadily in understanding the impact of the inherent uncertainty in the national population projections. As a result, the Government Acturay's Department has recently produced the most extensive set of official variant projections ever published in the United Kingdom. These include 'standard' variants based on alternative high and low assumptions for future fertility, life expectancy and net migration and also a number of 'special case scenarios.' All of these variants have been produced at both UK and individual country level. This article describes the full range of variant projections available from the 2000-based national projections and summaries some of the key results for both the UK and the individual countries.