POP developed a new population policy rationale which is equally valid for high- and low-fertility countries and also takes into account challenges due to population aging and even shrinkage. The goal of the rationale is to strengthen the human resource base for national and global sustainable development. It also innovatively addresses the three key concepts of the population policy debates: a desirable fertility level, the demographic dividend, and unmet family planning needs.
POP made a substantive input into the 2014 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities, Building Resilience,” which considers vulnerability and resilience through the lens of human development. World Population Program Director Wolfgang Lutz and POP researchers Samir KC, Elke Loichinger, Raya Muttarak, and Erich Strießnig wrote a background paper for the report. The paper addresses differential vulnerability for men and women over the life cycles from a demographic perspective and specifically by level of education.
POP also contributed to the work of the newly formed Alpbach–Laxenburg Group (ALG) which aims to support global transformations towards sustainable development by bringing together leading minds from academia, governments, business, civil society, and the arts. As the group’s first focus was on inequality, Lutz produced a background paper on generational inequality and made a presentation at a high-level retreat during the 2014 European Forum Alpbach. Lutz presented an important portrait of inequality across and within both populations and age groups based on the latest POP set of reconstructions and projections of educational attainment distributions by age and sex for 195 countries worldwide. The important policy message from the data analysis is that policies that aim to improve human wellbeing need to consider the inequality within human populations, for instance, differences in entitlement, including education.
Policy-relevant scientific results – data, projections and analysis – were presented by POP researchers in IIASA POP Newsletter POPNET (more than 2,500 copies of which were distributed and which was also made available electronically) and the 2014 European Population Data Sheet with its thematic focus on population migration and the impacts of this on current and future population change. The Data Sheet also provides information on female advantage and the reversed gender gap in tertiary education in Europe. For the first time the 2014 European Data Sheet is presented on the dedicated Web site in a more interactive and content-rich manner. It allows users to search and sort the main table and download the data from the embedded maps and graphs.
POP scientists presented the results of the program’s research at further global conferences influencing global policy frameworks and shaping national policy priorities (see Scientific Recognition).