ANNUAL SERIES OF DEMOGRAPHIC ESTIMATES

CONTENTS

• Time reference
• Explanatory notes
• Cautionary notes regarding country estimates

Time reference

The estimates refer to mid-year assessments.

Explanatory notes

The annual series of demographic estimates, which are stored in this domain, consist of the following:

• total population by sex
• urban and rural population
• agricultural and non-agricultural population
• total economically active population
• economically active population in agriculture

The annual series of the first two variables - that is total population and urban/rural population - starts from 1961. For technical reasons, the economically active population and agricultural population segments presented here are temporarily limited to series starting from 1980.

The total population series have been obtained from the UN Population Division which prepares estimates and projections of the total population by sex and age for each fifth year from 1950 to 2050. These series are biennially revised and the latest refer to the 1996 revision ("World Population Prospects: The 1996 Revision", United Nations, New York, 1996). As part of this biennial exercise the UN also derives annual estimates by interpolation. The figures for 1961-1996 presented here were extracted from the thus derived annual series.

The urban/rural population, the economically active population and the agricultural/non-agricultural population segments were obtained by systematically applying to the total population the related series of ratios (i.e. proportion of urban population, proportion of economically active population, etc).

The annual series corresponding to the urban/rural population and the total economically active population have been derived through interpolation of the series of ratios underlying the related long-term estimates and projections prepared by the UN (quinquennial series) and ILO (decennial series), respectively. For reference see: "World Urbanization Prospects: The 1994 Revision" (U.N., New York, 1995) and "Economically active population, 1950-2010: The 4th Revision"(ILO, Geneva, 1996).

In the case of agricultural population segments, the corresponding annual series have been obtained by interpolating and extrapolating the past trends (1950-1990). Information on agricultural population derived from national population censuses or surveys is scarce. In deriving estimates and projections of agricultural population presented here, FAO has largely relied on the close relationship existing between the ratio of economically active population in agriculture to total economically active population (EAPA/EAP) and the ratio of agricultural population to total population (AP/TP). For most countries the ratios were assumed to be equal, so that the agricultural population is derived by applying the EAPA/EAP ratio to the total population.