Demographic forecasts
We've touched on the accuracy or inaccuracy of long-run demographic forecasts before. They shouldn't be too inaccurate, because as least some of the people alive in the fuure are alive now. However that doesn't apply to these from Mr Kummer, Chief of the Swiss Bureau of Statistics. He calculated in 1884 the population of various European countries by 2000 (the first figure is in 1870-1880, the last the actual 2000 figure).Switzerland - 2.7m growing to 6.2m (7.2m)
Italy - 28m growing to 56.1m (57.7m)
France - 36m growing to 64m (59.4m)
Belgium 4.8m growing to 17m (10.3m)
Holland - 3.6m growing to 15.8m (15.8m!!!)
England - 22m growing to 129.2m (50m)
Scotland - 3.4m growing to 13.3m (5m)
Ireland - 5.4m falling to 3m (4m)
Germany - 41m growing to 165m (82m but note borders have changed)
Sweden - 4.2m growing to 13.7m (9m)
Denmark - 1.8m growing to 6.5m (5.4m)
Norway - 1.7m growing to 3.8m (4.5m)
I think he deserves a pat on the back. With the exception of Belgium, Germany, and perhaps Sweden he gets continental Europe pretty good. Then there's England and Scotland, which he forecast to be on 142m, and which in fact was 55m. Not so good. Better though perhaps than a 1937 letter to the Times, which presented 3 scenarios for population by 2037, the "high" one which was 21m and the low one - the "most likely" one, 4.1m.
Of course people making predictions helps to change behaviour so we must be thankful, not critical of such things. Though to be fair London house prices would be cheap if there were 1/10th as many of us.
posted by Matthew @ 7/20/2006 07:29:00 AM
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