In the most recent issue of Demographic Research, Monica Alexander interviews CSDE Affiliate Adrian Raftery on “Developing and Implementing the UN’s Probabilistic Population Projections as a Milestone for Bayesian Demography.” Every two years, the United Nations Population Division (UNPD) publishes population projections for all countries as part of the World Population Prospects (WPP). Since 2015, probabilistic population projections have been published as part of WPP.  Their approach was driven by the Bayesian statistical models developed by Professor Raftery and a team of statisticians at the University of Washington. Monica Alexander sits down with Dr. Raftery to discuss the history of the UNPD WPP probabilistic population projections, including how the project started, the methodological challenges, main takeaways and lessons, and priorities for future research. Visit this link to read the entire interview.

The Washington Post and the Seattle Times recently quoted CSDE Affiliate Gregg Colburn regarding Washington’s housing crises and rising homelessness.  In the Washington Post story, Working Americans struggle with homeless crisis amid lack of affordable housing, and the Seattle Times story, How WA governor candidates want to tackle housing, homelessness, Colburn notes how the homeless crisis has been growing across the U.S. It is the “unfortunate but predictable result of ongoing rent increases,” says Dr. Colburn. Washington State has been dealing with this issue for quite some time. Homelessness rose as rent prices soared over the past decade, along with a shortage of housing or affordable housing for those with a median income. This issue has always ranked high among issues that Washington voters want to tackle, and now there is an upcoming election for governor. An expert in housing and the state of Washington’s challenges in this area, Colburn worries that if “elected leaders don’t understand the forces driving homelessness and housing affordability, then ‘most policy prescriptions will keep us in this situation for longer.’” Colburn is Associate Professor in UW’s Runstad Department of Real Estate and co-author of the book Homelessness is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns. To learn more, read the Washington Post article and the Seattle Times article.

Recently CSDE Affiliate Dr. Kam Wing Chan was interviewed by Switzerland’s largest daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung on China’s recent household registration reforms. An English translation is here. In July, he and former CSDE trainee Dr. Xiaxia Yang (postdoc at King’s College, London) also published a commentary in Caixin Weekly, a major economics weekly in China. In the commentary “To Stay or to Go Home? they provide estimates about the degree of settlement of China’s internal migrants by comparing migrants’ age profiles in 2010 and 2020 based on census data. Their commentary draws on an analysis published in Eurasian Geography and Economics earlier and is an extension of their research featured on CSDE website last year.