Recent developments on mathematical demography in honour of Jim Vaupel: lifespan variation and fertility lost

In this seminar, I will present recent work on mathematical demography to analyse dynamics of lifespan variation and ongoing work to analyse fertility dynamics. Formulation of several mathematical frameworks has helped demographers understand both static and dynamic formulations of mortality indicators better. However, it is generally less understood how changes in fertility indicators between two periods can be expressed using mathematical notation. Combining mortality and fertility mathematical formulations, we introduce a new fertility indicator, f†, which quantifies the average number of potential offspring never born due to mortality before the end of the reproductive period. Based on our theoretical findings and the results of our simulations, we argue that f† may be a useful indicator of the pace and shape of demographic transition in human populations, i.e., the transition of a population from a regime  of high mortality and high fertility to a regime of low mortality and low fertility.

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