The ability to project population trends is of vital importance foranyone involved in planning -- in the public as well as the privatesector. This book provides the tools for making such projections anddiscusses four principal approaches: mathematical extrapolation,comparative methods, cohort survival and migration models.

Following the introductory chapter, which considers the need anduses for population projections, the next two chapters are concernedwith mathematical extrapolation techniques, as they are the tools mostcommonly used to project the size of a population and are alsofrequently employed in projecting components of one or more of theother three approaches.

In Chapter 3, the author outlines a four-step projection procedurewhich is used throughout the remainder of the book. Chapter 4 describeshow to project population size by comparing the growth pattern of thepopulation under study with that of another population. The nextchapter covers one of the most commonly employed techniques ofpopulation projection -- the cohort-survival model, which is used notonly to project the size of a population but also its composition interms of age and sex groupings. The final chapter focuses on migration,generally the most volatile component of the basic demographicsequation.

Primarily written for courses in planning, this book is also usefulfor anyone having to make decisions affected by population trends,whether they involve planning for future growth or alerting localdecisionmakers to external uncertainties that could have a seriousimpact on the future of the community.