Abstract
Population projections provide important evidence to inform policy and planning decisions. They generate significant media attention, particularly where projected populations are disputed by stakeholders. Most users of population projections are not demographers, nor do they understand the models that underpin them. Much of the public commentary about projected population futures, and the responses from government agencies that release data, are informed by local views of place and headline population numbers. In this context, communication of projection outputs by the demographers responsible for them needs to fall outside technical parameters with which they are most familiar. This chapter uses the recent release of preliminary and final population projections in New South Wales (NSW) as a case study to explore the diverse strategies needed to communicate population information from government. It outlines key messages, the range of products used and responses to the projections from different stakeholders. The chapter concludes with recommendations for successful communication and identifies those issues that remain challenges for demographers talking about their work with policy makers, planners and community members.
The views in this chapter reflect those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Planning & Environment. Any errors are the author’s own.
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Notes
- 1.
This revision was in response to results arising from the use of new data matching technology for the Census post-enumeration survey (PES). The new PES method showed lower levels of undercount compared to previous censuses and indicated that previous methods had over-estimated the undercount, with flow on effects to over-estimation of the ERPs.
- 2.
Rebasing is standard practice for the ABS. After every census, annual population estimates for the previous intercensal period are revised. In this instance, that was the period 2007–2011. The recast was a one-off event. It was a 15-year revision of all population estimates from 1992 to 2006 (ABS 2012c).
- 3.
The uncounted NSW births had been identified in 2012 due to ABS processing errors of late registrations (ABS 2012a, b). Late registrations are more common for young mothers, Indigenous mothers and those living in rural and remote areas of Australia (ABS 2006). This error was thus likely to disproportionately affect the fertility rates of those areas with large Indigenous populations and where there were greater proportions of younger mothers.
- 4.
Prior to the direct web link, users had six navigation options from the home page, none of which referred to demography, population, projections or forecasts. Population projections were listed under a link labelled, ‘Housing Availability’.
- 5.
As noted earlier, the Centre has been renamed the Demography and Economics Branch. Its functions and purpose remains the same.
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Johnstone, K. (2016). Communicating Population Projections to Stakeholders: A Case Study from New South Wales. In: Wilson, T., Charles-Edwards, E., Bell, M. (eds) Demography for Planning and Policy: Australian Case Studies. Applied Demography Series, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22135-9_5
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