Family Projection Methods: A Review

Abstract

I review methods for projecting the family structure of a population into the future. The focus is on Western countries. I define the concept of “family”, and stress the close link between family and household. There is an important distinction between family position (the attribute of individuals) and family type (the attribute of families). I propose a typology of family projection models, and review a large number of approaches. Consistency problems (being a generalization of the two-sex problem of demography) arise when interrelated events experienced by members of the same family are modelled. Little is known about the accuracy of various types of family projection models. The chapter concludes with an evaluation and assessment of various types of family projection models, using criteria such as data requirements, output detail, ease of programming, and extrapolation of parameters. Agent Based Models and probabilistic projection models are promising avenues for future work.