CSDE Research Scientist Hana Sevcikova Supports Efforts of the United Nations to Produce Demographic Projections for all Countries of the World

Posted: 6/26/2025 (CSDE Research)

For over a decade, the United Nations (UN) Population Division has been publishing demographic projections that are based on methodologies developed at the University of Washington. CSDE Senior Research Scientist Hana Sevcikova, PhD, is the lead collaborator in these efforts, along with CSDE Affiliate Adrian Raftery, Blumstein-Jordan Professor Emeritus of Statistics and Sociology (PI) and Patrick Gerland (United Nations). This work includes methods for probabilistic projections of fertility, mortality and population. In the most recent revision of the World Population Prospects (WPP), the WPP 2024 revision, probabilistic projections of migration have also been included for the first time.

Many of the methods that the UN has been using have been implemented in open-source software that Dr. Sevcikova developed and has been maintaining. It includes implementation of the statistical methodology as well as tools for data analysis and visualization. These efforts allow for any demographers, planners, researchers etc. to easily reproduce and analyze the UN work, as well as to apply it to their own circumstances. In addition to providing direct user support, Sevcikova and colleagues have been teaching the methodology and software in workshops throughout the world.

The research is ongoing – not all challenges in this aim of producing fully probabilistic population projections have been solved. For example, Sevcikova, along with Raftery, Sara Curran, CSDE Director, and Crystal Yu, PhD candidate in Sociology and CSDE trainee, are working on expanding the framework from the national to the subnational level, while collaborating with the State of Washington’s Office of Financial Management (OFM) on its application to county-level projections. Another challenging task is to predict migration age profile into the future and Sevcikova, along with James Raymer (Australian National University) and Raftery, have developed a promising methodology (currently under peer-review).

To arrange a consultation appointment with Hana Sevcikova or any of CSDE’s scientific support staff, please use the CSDE Science Core Consultation Request form.