Hi Guys,

Hope u all have enjoyed your holiday^^

Here we introduce u to our new event & urge u to come down to our enrichment talk, to have a short break from the tense preparation of the midterm. Come and enjoy the fun topic while learning sth abt STATS that u might have been concealed from~~

KK, kp u no more~~Here are the topic and extract of the talk:

Projecting birth rates for all countries in the world Enrichment talk by Dr. Alkema, Asisstant Professor, Dept. of Statistics and Applied Probability "Demographers can no more be held responsible for inaccuracy in forecasting population 20 years ahead than geologists, meteorologists, or economists when they fail to announce earthquakes, cold winters, or depressions 20 years ahead. What we can be held responsible for is warning one another and our public what the error of our estimates is likely to be." (Demographer Nathan Keyfitz, 1981) The United Nations Population Division publishes projections of birth rates for all countries in the world, up to 2050. These projections are needed for population projections, to project how many people there will be in each country in 2050, and used for policy making. Assessing the uncertainty in the projections is important to be able to “hope for the best while preparing for the worst”. We developed a projection model to construct probabilistic projections of birth rates for all countries in the world, as the first step to construct probabilistic population projections. For high fertility countries, we project that birth rates will decline based on a demographic transition model. The parameters of the model are estimated for each high-fertility country using a Bayesian hierarchical model. For low-fertility countries like Singapore, a time series model is used to project future birth rates, based on the assumption that these rates will converge towards and fluctuate around replacement level fertility in the distant future. This research project is collaborative work with Adrian E. Raftery, Patrick Gerland, Samuel J. Clark, and Francois Pelletier (University of Washington, Seattle and UN Population Division). In this presentation I will explain the projection methodology and show results for some countries. The presentation is intended for undergraduate students who are interested in the application of statistics in demography. At the end of the presentation I’ll briefly discuss some other examples of how statistical methods are being used for estimating and projecting demographic outcomes as a further introduction into the interesting world of statistical demography.