This article was downloaded by: [North Carolina State University]

On: 12 April 2015, At: 11:28

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Mathematical Population Studies:

An International Journal of
Mathematical Demography
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gmps20

Complexity, accuracy, and utility of

official population projections
a
John F. Long
a
Population Division , U.S. Bureau of the Census ,
Washington, DC, 20233, USA
Published online: 21 Sep 2009.

To cite this article: John F. Long (1995) Complexity, accuracy, and utility of official
population projections, Mathematical Population Studies: An International Journal of
Mathematical Demography, 5:3, 203-216, DOI: 10.1080/08898489509525402

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08898489509525402

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information
(the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor
& Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties
whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the
Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and
views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The
accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently
verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable
for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,
and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in
connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/
page/terms-and-conditions
 Mathematical Population Studies © 1995 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association)
1995, Vol. 5(3), pp. 203-216 Amsterdam B.V. Published under license by
Reprints available directly from the publisher Gordon and Breach Science Publishers SA.
Photocopying permitted by license only Printed in Malaysia

COMPLEXITY, ACCURACY, AND UTILITY OF OFFICIAL

POPULATION PROJECTIONS*
JOHN F. LONG
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

Population Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census, Washington, DC 20233, USA

February 20, 1995

The level of complexity affects both the accuracy and their utility of official population projections used
for government planning. This article examines the types of complexity in population projections, charts
the growth of complexity in projections produced by the U.S. Census Bureau, and evaluates the accuracy
of those projections. While increased complexity does not improve the accuracy or estimates of total
population growth, it does appear to improve the accuracy of projected age distributions. Moreover, the
value of these projections to the user depends upon many factors in addition to accuracy. Increasing
complexity may improve some aspects of a projection's utility while degrading others.

KEY WORDS: Population projections, complexity, accuracy, census bureau.

Communicated by Andrei Rogers.

INTRODUCTION
The level of complexity in population projections may affect both their accuracy and
their utility. While complexity in population projection models is often addressed as
an issue of forecast accuracy, complexity's effects on the much broader concept of
utility should not be ignored. This is especially true for official population projec-
tions used for government planning and widely disseminated as a consensus view of
the direction of current population trends. The value of these projections to the user
depends upon many factors in addition to accuracy: legitimacy (use of most recent
data, consensus on assumptions), face validity (consideration of relevant variables),
transparency (ease of explanation), user friendliness (assumption choice), and suit-
ability as a base for other projections (both official and unofficial). Increasing com-
plexity may improve some of these aspects of a projection's utility while degrading
others.
This paper examines the types of complexity in population projections, charts
the growth of complexity in projections produced by the U.S. Census Bureau, and
evaluates the accuracy of those projections. It concludes with an overall assessment
of the effects of complexity on both the accuracy and utility of official population
projections.

*Revised version of a paper presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the Population Association of
America, Miami, FL, May 4-7, 1994.

203
 204 J. F. LONG

TYPES OF COMPLEXITY
Complexity may be introduced in various aspects of the population projection pro-
cess. Three major areas to be considered in this paper are model specification, de-
gree of disaggregation, and selection of assumptions and alternative scenarios.

Model Complexity
Over time, official population projections have shown an increasing degree of meth-
odological sophistication. While these improvements could be ascribed to forecast-
ers' conscientiousness in implementing improvements in the state of the art, there
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

are less charitable explanations. Feeney (1988) contends that government model-
ers given the above choice between simple and complicated models will choose the
more complex models even if it does not improve the projections. He argues that
this tendency results from responding to criticism that some important factor has
been left out of the model.
In practice, however, these pressures for greater complexity may be balanced by
the need for parsimony. Since official projections are often used by policy makers,
the forecaster must design the projections so that the methodology (or at a minimum
the underlying rationale) is explainable to the user. This is particularly important for
projections where the user is given a detailed background on the methodology and
underlying assumptions and asked to make the choice between alternative scenarios.
Unnecessarily complex models may decrease the utility of the projection when the
user views the system as a "black box" and has no way to judge its validity for a
given purpose.
Population projection models can be of various types: judgmental, demographic
accounting, statistical time series, and economic-demographic. Each of these types
of methods brings models of varying complexity (Long, 1984). The specification of
models usually relies on a choice among these forecasting traditions and on the
level of complexity in the model itself. Model specification involves the decision
of whether to use such simple models as a geometric extrapolation of the total
population growth rate or complex models such as a multistate cohort-component
model.
Census Bureau projection methods have been mainly in the demographic ac-
counting tradition using the cohort-component model. In the cohort-component
model, a population matrix with dimensions including age and sex and often ex-
tended to other dimensions such as race and spatial location is projected forward
using a matrix of transition probabilities consisting of components including fertility,
mortality, and migration. Within this model additional complexity depends on the
degree of disaggregation, the methods for setting or modeling assumptions about
components, and the number of alternative scenarios chosen.

Disaggregation Complexity
One of the chief sources of complexity in population projections is the disaggrega-
tion of population by age, sex, race, and other demographic characteristics. There
 OFFICIAL POPULATION PROJECTIONS 205

are two alternative reasons given for such disaggregation—to improve the accuracy
of the projection at the aggregate level or to provide data for disaggregated popula-
tion characteristics of interest in their own right.
Arguments of the first type underlie much of the push toward disaggregated mod-
els. They rely on the premise that aggregated population accounts confound underly-
ing patterns in subgroups categorized by age, region, marital and work status. These
underlying patterns may be more stable or more amenable to discovery of a smooth
predictable trend. Consequently, a proper disaggregation divides the population into
the most homogeneous subcategories possible. Such a disaggregation should reduce
the accounting problems that might arise from less disaggregation and provide for
stability in the underlying rates.
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

Disaggregation may help to sort out conflicting trends in the data. For example,
fertility trends in the U.S. during the 1980s were composed of an increase due to
rising numbers of women of child bearing age and a decrease due to the declin-
ing age-specific birth rates at each age. Disaggregation of the female population by
single years of age addresses this problem by multiplying the declining age-specific
fertility rate by the appropriate population of that age group. Unfortunately, this
also assumes independence between the two effects. To the extent that interaction
effects exist, disaggregation may actually make the projection model worse.
One of the other problems of disaggregating population projection models is that
it is hard to see where to stop. In explanatory models using multivariate regression
analysis, the addition of new independent variables can lead to a loss in the degrees
of freedom. If the additional explanation gained is not statistically significant, the
extra variables are dropped in favor of a smaller, more parsimonious model. In con-
trast, multistate models have no such test for parsimony. Consequently, multistate
models are often likely to be more complicated than necessary.
One of the early disadvantages of too much disaggregation was the lack of com-
puter capacity. Today, the expanded availability of computer memory makes this less
of a problem, but other problems remain. With so many cells, the number of obser-
vations (even in a national census with complete enumeration) may not be sufficient
to avoid small and zero cell sizes. These small cell sizes can lead to instability in the
parameters estimated. This instability in the estimates of the transition probabilities
may propagate through the system in unexpected ways. Especially if there is non-
linearity in the system, random errors may not all cancel out and a disaggregated
system may be less stable than a more aggregated system.
Another constraint in the disaggregation process is the lack of available data.
Sometimes the required data can in fact be constructed or estimated from alterna-
tive data sources. Other times, however, the lack of data must be recognized and
accepted. Even when the data are available, it is often the case that the more highly
aggregated data are of better quality. Many data systems are designed to capture
only large scale demographic movements and are inadequate for small geographic
levels or detailed population characteristics.
The above advantages and disadvantages of disaggregation are all based on meth-
odological issues. Perhaps the more compelling rationale for disaggregation com-
plexity comes when one's interest is in the composition of the disaggregated pop-
 206 J. F. LONG

ulation. Increasingly users have demanded the more detailed population charac-
teristics provided by a disaggregated model. In such cases, the utility of the extra
demographic detail may be more important than the accuracy of the total model.

Assumption Setting and Alternative Scenarios

Much of the effort in producing a useful cohort-component model comes in the de-
velopment of assumptions as to the level and direction of the transition probabilities
(e.g. birth, death, and migration rates). Complexity can enter both from the choice
of methodologies to model these future trends and in the number of alternative
scenarios chosen.
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

The methods used to set input assumptions have become more complex over
time. Early cohort-component methods simply held current rates constant so that
projections were basically an exercise in stable population analysis. Later projec-
tions chose an ultimate future level of certain of the transition probabilities (such as
age-specific fertility rates) and interpolated to that ultimate values. In recent years,
there have been attempts to model the actual structure and trends in the transition
probabilities.
For example, in national population projections considerable effort over the years
has gone into modeling future trends of age-specific fertility rates. During the 1960s
and 1970s, much of this effort involved using birth expectations and past cohort
fertility patterns to model future age-specific fertility. In more recent projections,
fertility has been modeled using statistical time series analysis of period fertility
rates. Similarly, state projections incorporate changing migration rates using time
series of state-to-state migration rates and economic-demographic models based on
employment expectations.
Another area of complexity arises from providing alternative series of projections
representing different scenarios of future growth. For most of its history, the Census
Bureau has provided alternative series of fertility. Recently, alternative series of
mortality and immigration rates have been added. Three alternatives for each of the
three components result in 27 different series that certainly add complexity to the
set of projections produced.
These alternative projection series have been variously portrayed as giving alter-
native paths of future growth or as providing data about the possible variability,
uncertainty, or error ranges around a most likely scenario. While earlier Census
Bureau projections tended to claim all alternatives were equally likely (even to the
point of giving even numbers of series so there would be no middle series), recent
projections have identified a most likely series and portrayed the alternative series
as indicative of possible variability.

GROWTH OF COMPLEXITY IN CENSUS BUREAU POPULATION

PROJECTIONS
During the half century that the Census Bureau has been producing population pro-
jections, its projection models have increased in methodological sophistication and
in demographic detail. Both of these trends have added complexity of the models.
 OFFICIAL POPULATION PROJECTIONS 207

While this added complexity has led to increased utility in the national and state
projections, it has not necessarily led to increased accuracy.

National Population Projections

Perhaps the earliest example of federal forecasting was a case of simple exponential
forecasting. In his annual address to Congress in 1865, Abraham Lincoln noted the
35% growth of the nation's population for each decade from 1790 through 1860 and
extrapolated this growth rate through 1930 (Basier, 1947). This method of geometric
extrapolation forecasted a total population of 216 million for 1930. Unfortunately,
the 1850s was the last decade of such explosive growth and. the actual 1930 Cen-
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

sus count was only 123 million. The federal government's first forecast using sim-
ple exponential methods was not accurate—but perhaps it was useful. It persuaded
Congress to permit an increase in the national debt to finance the Civil War since
such a debt could easily be paid off by future generations.
The modern era of population projections at the Census Bureau began in 1945
with a joint project with the Scripps Foundation. Under the direction of P. K. Whelp-
ton, this project separately projected the components of population growth—births,
deaths, and immigration (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1947). The resulting cohort-
component method applies age-specific rates of births, deaths, and immigration to
each combination of race, sex, and age groups. Whelpton's model remained for
many years the most sophisticated model published by the U.S. Census Bureau. It
was also one of the least accurate. Whelpton, like Lincoln, had the misfortune of
making his projections shortly before a major turning point in U.S. demographic
trends. While Whelpton had assumed a decline in fertility from its moderately high
level of the war years to its low pre-war trends, we now know that the nation was
on the verge of a massive 20-year increase in fertility known as the post-war baby
boom.
The overwhelming influence of these fertility increases focussed most of the Cen-
sus Bureau's subsequent methodological developments on finding ways to set the
assumed future levels of fertility. The other components of population change were
virtually ignored and the basic cohort component model was scarcely changed. For
the remainder of the 1940s and throughout the 1950s, the projections were revised
almost every other year with higher fertility rates. But by the time each new projec-
tion was published fertility had risen even higher outstripping the projections (Fig-
ure 1). Alternative projections provided one of the few methods by which fertility
changes could be followed—inevitably the high assumption proved better than the
medium assumption during this period.
In the early 1960s, the Census Bureau experimented with a number of method-
ological improvements—not to the basic cohort component model—but to the
methods used to set the future age-specific fertility distribution to be used in the
assumptions. Attention shifted from period to cohort fertility. The Census Bureau
tracked past fertility for each birth cohort of women, compared that to birth expec-
tations data from the Current Population Survey, and used a number of different
procedures to complete the cohort's fertility. While the cohort completion portion
of this exercise gave reasonable success, the extension of this method to predict fu-
 J. F. LONG

-H.00
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

0 I " 'i I i i i i I n i i 1i i n i <i i i I n i i i 11 i i I i i i i ] i i i i I i i i i i 11 i t I 11 i i I I 0 . 0 0

1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 I960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985
Calendar Year or Baa« Year of Projection
FIGURE 1. Projected ultimate births per woman vs. subsequent total fertility rates.

ture fertility levels of cohorts not yet in childbearing was demonstrably inaccurate
(Long and Wetrogan, 1979). Unfortunately, the Census Bureau's timing was again
poor. Just as these innovations were introduced in the 1964 projections, fertility was
about to take a nosedive.
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Census Bureau was again in the
position of producing new projections almost every year. This time each projection
had fertility rates that were too high by the time they were published. Once again
methodological sophistication could not compensate for dramatic turnarounds in
demographic trends. Not until the projections of 1972 did the errors in the pro-
jected rate of population growth fall to reasonable levels. This was not the result of
technological innovation but rather the newly found stability of total fertility rates
that remained within the 1.75 to 1.85 range from 1973 through 1989 (Figure 1).
In fact fertility was so stable during this period that the Census Bureau was again
able to turn its attention to the other components of population change. The Cen-
sus Bureau's 1986-based projections included a set of 30 projection series combining
alternative assumptions on fertility, mortality, and immigration—just at the time that
interest in these latter two components was reaching the forefront of public opin-
ion. Mortality assumed much greater importance with the interest in projecting the
future size of the elderly population. At the same time, immigration began to play
an ever greater role in the growth of the U.S. population. The Census Bureau's
middle mortality and immigration assumptions were somewhat conservative but the
increased detail did improve the utility of the projections and did help inform policy
decisions.
 OFFICIAL POPULATION PROJECTIONS 209

Accuracy of Tbtal Population in National Projections

Is the net result of this increasing complexity in Census Bureau projection models
more accurate projections? Keyfitz (1981: 590) has argued that although popula-
tion forecasts have high rates of error there is some evidence that their accuracy is
improving and that population forecasts that include judgment and the latest tech-
niques of demography perform better that a simple exponential extrapolation. On
the other hand, Stoto (1983:18) contended that often a simple extrapolation of the
current growth rate does as well as the more sophisticated cohort component mod-
els. Using a somewhat different methodology, Keilman (1989) found mixed results
in comparing the improvements in accuracy with methodological improvements in
the official population forecasts of the Netherlands. Can we replicate these analyses
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

using the historical record of accuracy of Census Bureau projections?

For each of the Census Bureau's projection cycles since 1945, the projected an-
nual growth in total population for every year in the forecast period is compared
with the subsequently estimated growth rate for that year. The selected measure
of accuracy is the root mean square percent error (RMSE) of the annual rates of
population growth for each of the first 5 years of the projection period. The dark
bars in Figure 2 show the error level for the middle or preferred series for each of
the Census Bureau projections produced since 1945. In general, these errors have
tended to decrease in more recent years as the complexity of the models and meth-
ods have increased.
However, such a conclusion does not hold when we recall that improvements in
methodology cannot be directly evaluated based on improved accuracy due to the
vagaries of demographic change. In order to differentiate the effects of method-
ological change form the effects of changing variability in population trends, we cal-
culated the RMSE for a naive extrapolation that holds the total population growth
constant at the level of the year immediately prior to the base date of the projection
period. The resulting errors represented by the lightly shaded bars in Figure 2 also
show considerable reductions in error rates in recent years as population growth
became fairly constant in response to increased stability in fertility rates through
the late 1970s and the 1980s.
However, the most telling result comes from comparing the forecast errors in
the Census Bureau projections with the forecast errors using the naive constant
growth extrapolation again referring to Figure 2. The Census Bureau projections
performed better than the naive constant growth assumption in only 3 of the 15
projections (1957, 1963, and 1972). While one might expect these results given the
short 5-year forecast period, similar patterns remain for longer projection horizons.
Figure 3 tests this possibility by comparing the errors of the extrapolated and
Census Bureau projections for the first 20 years of the projection period. The Cen-
sus Bureau projections still tend to give larger forecast errors that the naive extrapo-
lations. Of the nine national projection cycles for which 20 year forecasts were eval-
uated, only 3 were more accurate than a constant growth assumption—and these
three were done in the 1950's when the Census Bureau projection methodology
was least sophisticated. There seems to be little correlation between methodologi-
cal innovation and the accuracy of the projections of total national population size
(Figure 3).
 210 J. F. LONG
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

{£.

45 47 49 53 55 57 63 66 69 70 72 74 76 82 86
Base Year of Projection

Census Bureau Constant Growth

FIGURE 2. Errors in projected annual growth rate total U.S. population: First 5 years.

Why do we get such disappointing results? One suggestion is the effect of as-
sumption drag—where changes in the input assumptions have considerably lagged
actual changes. This hypothesis seems quite plausible in the case of fertility where
even a visual inspection of Figure 1 indicates a lag between actual fertility and the
ultimate levels of fertility assumptions. In such cases, using the last year's rate of ag-
gregate population growth may prove more accurate than a more complex system.
In the more complex system, the delay in waiting for detailed age-specific data on
births, deaths, and immigration can easily be 2 or 3 years and may be compounded
by even more delay before internal agreement can be made to change the official
assumptions as tö future levels of these components. As a result, the actual transi-
tion probabilities used in the projection could be 3 to 5 years older than the base
date while the naive extrapolation used for comparison used the population change
for the year immediately prior to the base date.

Projections of Population Composition

The situation is considerably different when we analyze the accuracy of population
projections disaggregated by demographic characteristics and/or geographic distri-
bution. At the national level, projections of age and sex developed by the cohort
component model is far superior to a simple extrapolation. A projection of a con-
stant rate of growth for each age group would give patently inaccurate forecasts for
specific population age groups for populations with an unequal age structure. For
official forecasts particularly, the interest for policy makers may be much greater in
 OFFICIAL POPULATION PROJECTIONS 211

1.2

2 1
I
I 0.8
o
O_
<D
O.0.6
CD
1m- ••1 __ m
ta

*•i •
§0.4
I 11
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

o_
i n
mm m mm
w0.2
Um
11 _i
mñ
I
• Hi?"-
•
|
m—, 1
_
•
•|

IS I 1
HP
MM

1945
—•*£

1953
mm
•p
1955 1957
il
¿y

1963
H
lu 11 11 H
1966
Base Year of Projection
1969 1970 1972

Census Bureau Constant Growth

FIGURE 3. Errors in projected annual growth rate total U.S. population: First 20 years.

projecting changes in the age (or race) distribution than in forecasting the total pop-
ulation. Official projections are often used in policy making and planning where the
age composition of the population is more important than the aggregate population
size.
Figure 4 calculates the errors in projected annual growth rates for the first 8
years of Census Bureau projections for various base years with a constant growth
assumption. For this constant growth assumption we used the growth rate for the
year immediately prior to the base year of the projection. In every case, the cohort-
component model's projections of the population 15-19 represent a substantial
improvement over a model that assumes a constant growth rate for this popula-
tion. With only a couple of exceptions the same results hold for the age 60-64
population (Figure 5). These two groups, of course, should be especially influenc-
ed by the momentum of the age structure, particularly in the short 8 year period
we have chosen for comparison. However, the importance of adding the com-
plexity of a cohort component model is clear when our interest is in specific age
groups.

Projections of State Populations

Related to demographic disaggregation is the case of geographic disaggregation. The
Census Bureau's state projections show a history of increasing complexity similar
to that for the national level. The Bureau's first projection in 1952 simply used a
ratio method to divide the national population into state portions. In 1957, the state
 212 J. F. LONG
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

CC
1947 1949 1963 1969 1970 1972 1974 1976
Base Year of Projection

Census Bureau [äääjl Constant Growth

th

FIGURE 4. Errors in projected annual growth rate ages 15-19: First 8 years.

1.5 -
I
É
1

ite
1947 1949 1963
î
1969 1970
Base Year of Projection
1972
1I
1974 I
1976

Census Bureau f@H Constant Growth

FIGURE 5. Errors in projected annual growth rate ages 60-64: First 8 years.
 OFFICIAL POPULATION PROJECTIONS 213
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

1965 1970 1975 1980 1986

Base Year of Projection

Census Bureau Constant Growth

FIGURE 6. Errors in projected state populations: First 5 years.

projections used a component method in which the three components of births,

deaths, and net migration were projected separately using crude birth, death, and net
migration rates. Later projections introduced the cohort-component methodology
using age-specific rates of fertility, mortality, and net migration.
In 1965, the Census Bureau improved its state projections again by replacing net
migration with gross migration. These methods used an accounting technique in
which state age-specific outmigration rates were applied to each state's population
to obtain the total number of interstate migrants. This migrant pool was then
allocated as inmigration to each state by using inmigration proportions. In addi-
tion, considerable attention was paid to disaggregating the subgroups of migration.
Persons in the military and in college were projected separately from other mi-
grants.
In the wake of new population results from the 1980 census but before census mi-
gration data were tabulated, the Census Bureau reverted to a simple net migration
methodology for an interim set of state projections. In 1986, the Census Bureau
again increased the complexity of the migration models by incorporating a full-scale
multiregional model that used a matrix of state-to-state migration flows by age, race,
and sex. In addition, the Census Bureau attempted to model changes in this matrix
using annual changes in filing addresses on tax returns as an indication of chang-
ing migration patterns. The most recent state population projections continue the
general trend toward ever greater complexity—by adding greater race and ethnic
detail.
 214 J. F. LONG

LU
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

1965 1970 1975

Base Year of Projection

Census Bureau Constant Growth

FIGURE 7. Errors in projected state populations: First 15 years.

Accuracy of Simple and Complex Models for State Projections

Were the projections more accurate with increased complexity? Again the results
appear to depend more on demographic volatility (this time of migration rather
than fertility) than on the degree of sophistication of the model.
Using a 5-year forecast horizon, Figure 6 shows that the Census Bureau projec-
tions were more accurate than a constant growth model in three out of 5 projection
cycles (1965, 1980, and 1986). Over a longer 15-year period (Figure 7), two of the
three projection cycles (1965 and 1975) proved Census Bureau projections superior
to the naive constant growth models. While the most complex model (the state-
to-state model based on 1986) shows the lowest error rate after 5 years, the least
complex model (the 1980 residual net migration model) performed almost as well.
Can the fact that naive extrapolations work almost as well as more complex cen-
sus projections for states be explained? As with the national projections, delays in
data availability may play a part. In the standard cohort component migrant pool
models, the key data input is the five year migration rate from the previous census.
However, migration data are the last data series to be processed from the decennial
census and often are not available until more than three years after the census date.
Combine this with the decennial frequency of this data source and you can see that
the availability of migration data may lag the projection base date by ten to fifteen
years. For example the projections based on 1965 and those based on 1970 both
used 1955-1960 migration data. The 1975-based projections used 1965-1970 migra-
tion data. Although attempts were made to update or adjust these rates based on
 OFFICIAL POPULATION PROJECTIONS 215

recent trends, those attempts necessarily involved a whole new set of assumptions
and in many cases were not better than extrapolations of more recent rates of total
population growth. The advantages of a more complex method were in fact negated
by the dated nature of the input data.
Another example of the importance of the quality of input data versus the level
of model sophistication comes from the 1980 Census Bureau state projections. In
this model, the decision was made not to wait for the 1975-1980 data nor to use the
outdated 1965-1970 data but to use the simpler net migration method. However, a
large amount of work went into the analysis and preparation of the net migration
input data. Between the 1970 and 1980 census the net undercount rates dropped
substantially. As a result intercensal population growth and residual net migration
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

were overstated. Substantial efforts were made in the 1980 based report to correct
for this overstatement of migration and the subsequent good performance relative
to the naive extrapolation of nominal 1970-1980 growth rates may reflect this.
The projection based on 1986 not only used a more sophisticated methodology in
the multistate model, it shifted the migration data source to the annually available
1RS data rather than the decennial migration question. Whether the more sophisti-
cated model or the reduction in "data lag" is responsible for its good performance
is hard to say.

CONCLUSIONS
Given the above results, a case for complexity in demographic projections cannot
be made on the basis of accuracy alone. The official projections must be judged on
their utility as well as their accuracy. To be useful the projections must be internally
consistent. A projection and its methodology and explicit assumptions should ap-
pear logical and based on common sense or accepted academic theory; this often
increases the complexity of the model. Similarly, the projections should assure good
demographic accounting. Not only does this help in explaining the model' s utility
but it also leads to a clearer indication of the implication of current demographic
trends. It also provides an important means of tracking the validity of forecasts since
components of the model can be observed rather than just aggregate trends.
The sophistication of the methodology should also be evaluated. An analysis of
the state of the art in population projection methods should be made so that the
riational statistical agency's methods can be compared with them. Those methods
may not always be appropriate in keeping with the other criteria but they must be
considered.
Perhaps most importantly, a projection should be based on how well it suits
the users' needs. Users require many things. They want reports based on recent
data, containing detailed characteristics and often detailed geography, and pre-
sented clearly. Sometimes users may need more than they think. Most users want
only a single value for each projected item when in fact they should also take a
range to give them a feel for the uncertainty in their projections.
If one is interested only in a single aggregate number—total population at a given
future date or the total rate of population growth between two dates, a complex
model is not necessary. Why waste the effort of amassing hundreds of parameters
 216 J. F. LONG

on population composition and components of population change when a simple

exponential model may do as well? If on the other hand, one is interested in de-
scribing the complexity of current population trends in detail and explaining their
ramifications for future population composition and geographic distribution then
complex models with their capacity for more detail and richness of interacting fac-
tors are vital. Hence, simple models can answer simple questions. But for the more
complex questions that official population projections are called upon to answer
and to defend—full, rich, even complex models are much more useful.

REFERENCES
Downloaded by [North Carolina State University] at 11:28 12 April 2015

Alho, J. M., and Spencer, B. D. (1985) Uncertain population forecasting. Journal of the American Statis-
tical Association.
Feeney, G. (1988) Comparative structure of low fertility in Japan and the United States. Paper presented
at the IIASA Conference on Future Changes in Population Age Structure, Sopron, Hungary, October
18-21.
Keilman, N. (1989) Do more advanced forecast models produce more accurate forecasts? Paper pre-
sented at the workshop on "The Usefulness of Demographic Models," Jadwisin, Poland, Nov. 13-15,
1989.
Keyfitz, N. (1981) The limits of population forecasting. Population and Development Review 7 (4): 579-
593.
Keyfitz, N. (1982) Can knowledge improve forecasts? Population and Development Review 8 (4): 729-751.
Land, K. C. (1986) Methods for national population forecasts: A review. Journal of the American Statis-
tical Association 81: 888-901.
Long, J. F. (1984) U.S. national population projection methods: A view from four forecasting traditions.
Insurance: Mathematics and Economics 3: 231-239.
Rogers, A. (1976) Shrinking large-scale population projection models by aggregation and decomposition.
Environment and Planning A 8: 515-541.
Rogers, A. (1988) Advances in parameterized population projections. Paper presented at the Workshop
on Multistate Demography, Zeist, The Netherlands, Oct. 29-Nov. 3.
Stoto, M. A. (1983) The accuracy of population projections. Journal of the American Statistical Associa-
tion 78: 13-20.
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1989) Projections of the population of the United States by age, sex, and
race: 1988 to 2080. Current Population Reports, Series P-25, No. 1018.