World Population Program (POP)

The World Population (POP) Program has established leadership in the fields of methods of population forecasting and the analysis of population-environment interactions. IIASA is thus the only global change research institute with significant in-house population expertise.

In 2011–2015 this role will be strengthened and expanded with the application of innovative methods to individual countries and sub-national populations. The Program’s research over 2011–2015 will cover four main themes:
(1)   population forecasting,
(2)   the analysis of population characteristics, human capital and productivity,
(3)   forecasting the adaptive capacity to climate change,
(4)   estimating and projecting beliefs and ideational change.

Research within the forecasting theme focuses on the demographic dynamics of global population aging, addressing the uncertainty of future trends in old age mortality and the resulting structure of the elderly populations around the world. Work on the demography of human capital formation applies IIASA’s multi-state projection methods to forecast populations by level of education and health around the world. IIASA also estimates and analyzes variation in productivity related factors. The third theme is developing through new comprehensive population-development-environment case studies. In particular, IIASA will take the lead in conducting such studies for those regions that were most severely hit by the December 2004 Asian tsunami. POP also remains active in contributing to global population-environment discussions. Finally, IIASA focuses on a project related to estimating and projecting age-sex structures of beliefs and ideational change across the world.

Applicants are encouraged to contact the program representative, Marcin Stonawski (stonaw@iiasa.ac.at) for any scientific related questions. For more information about the POP program check the web site.

Responsible for this page: Tanja Huber
Last updated: 03 Oct 2011