Computational Social Science Innovative Methods/Software of Household and Living Arrangement Projections for Informed Decision-Making
Professor Zeng Yi

ABSTRACT

Household and living arrangement projections are useful in socioeconomic planning at national and regional levels. ProFamy methods and user-friendly software are multi-dimensional cohort-component approach that projects simultaneously households of various types/sizes, and sex, age and living arrangements distributions of all individual of the population under study, using the conventional and commonly available demographic data as input. ProFamy methods/software have been used by various scholars and analysts in different fields, such as household, living arrangement projections and socioeconomic planning at national and regional levels in China, Singapore, U.S.A., Brazil, Mexico, India, Germany, Iran; implications of changes in households and living arrangements for housing industry, residential energy demands and policy-making in China, U.S.A and Pakistan; household automobile demands in U.S.A and Austria; fertility policy analyses, retirement ages and pension forecasting in China; elderly care needs/costs projections in China and U.S.A; family financing in Sri Lanka and China; Up to Nov. 2020, scholars from 27 countries, UNFPA and World Bank downloaded and use ProFamy free software to do household and living arrangement projections for informed decision-making. We are currently extending ProFamy methods/software to innovative probabilistic household projection methods/software, firstly applying in eight countries and then in eight other countries and likely worldwide.