Drivers of global transformations can take many different forms. Human populations, for instance, are clearly a leading driver of global change, and in 2015 IIASA developed its pioneering approach to age classification. The uptake of new technologies can also drive worldwide transformations, and IIASA provided insights into this area in 2015 by linking technological change processes to social behavioral variables.
The World Population Program (POP), with three other IIASA programs—Energy (ENE), Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG), and Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) – continues to implement the crosscutting project “Accounting for socioeconomic heterogeneity in IIASA models” started in 2014. more
Explicitly accounting for population heterogeneity—in particular with respect to level of education—provides an analytical tool for anticipating future vulnerability. Community participation and strong social networks can also aid preparedness to natural disasters in vulnerable regions, shows new research conducted in the south of Thailand. more
World Population Program (POP) researchers are partners in a new international research project on aging and health, funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. The initiative aims to achieve a better understanding of aging by identifying patterns of healthy aging pathways. more
This theory puts the age-old wisdom that societies change through generational replacement into analytical form. Using the tools of multidimensional demography it presents a formalized model that allows for quantitative forecasts of such societal changes for decades into the future. more
World Population Program (POP) researchers are partners in a new international research project on aging and health, funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. The initiative aims to achieve a better understanding of aging by identifying patterns of healthy aging pathways. more
In the past, integrated assessment models have typically relied on average “per-capita characteristics” of consumers and have, therefore, fallen short in representing behavioral factors in a detailed way. The Energy Program’s MESSAGE modeling team has enhanced its treatment of these factors, focusing in particular on modeling decisions to purchase light-duty vehicles. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers develop and study stylized economic growth models and advance methods of the optimal control theory needed to analyze such models, also taking inherent uncertainties into account. Long-term economic growth is driven by the dynamics of natural, physical, and human capital and is subject to feedback with the environment. more
IIASA research has firmly established the fact that improvements in the educational attainment structure of populations are a key driver of economic growth. The new set of global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios—which define alternative population trajectories by age, sex, and six levels of educational attainment—reflect this, showing that economic growth trajectories follow those of human capital. more
The Global Human Capital Data Sheet 2015, produced by the World Population Program (POP), presents new population projections by age, sex, and level of educational attainment for all countries in the world with projections to 2060. Alongside this, a visualization tool allows exploration of the projections, focusing on progress in female education. more
In a new article published in the journal Population Studies [1], Wolfgang Lutz and Erich Striessnig show that population growth and changes in demographic structure are key factors influencing future climate change and people’s ability to adapt. more
If age is not viewed as a static measure, but modified to reflect changing health, life expectancy, and cognitive performance, this has significant consequences for many demographic indicators. Most importantly, the conventional old-age dependency ratio, which assumes that everybody below 65 is productive and everybody above is unproductive, becomes very misleading when used over longer time horizons. more
Life expectancies and levels of health in many developed and developing countries have increased significantly over the past decades, and are expected to continue increasing. In contrast to these profound changes, the concepts that demographers have used to analyze population-level aging have remained largely static. This project proposes alternative dynamic definitions of age. more
The religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. New research provides insights into future trajectories of religious change in the world. more
Explicitly accounting for population heterogeneity—in particular with respect to level of education—provides an analytical tool for anticipating future vulnerability. Community participation and strong social networks can also aid preparedness to natural disasters in vulnerable regions, shows new research conducted in the south of Thailand. more
Chuchu Chen, of the Tsinghua University, China, modeled ammonia emissions to identify the best agricultural management for reducing air pollution. more
Jie Zhang, of Tsinghua University, China, investigated ways of improving agricultural management to maintain crop yields while reducing phosphorus pollution. more
Sunyong Sung, of Seoul National University, Republic of Korea, used the IIASA Global Forest Model (G4M) to investigate the impacts of climate change on the net primary productivity (NPP) of forests on the Korean Peninsula, showing that NPP would increase under all scenarios tested. more
