The 2022 Berkeley Workshop in Formal Demography (BWFD) was held in person and virtually from June 6 -10, 2022. The theme of the 2022 BWFD workshop was COVID-19 and Formal Demography. The lectures, exercises, and research talks covered some of the central concepts of formal demography, with a special focus on the applications of these methods to studying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The links allow access to slides, exercises, readings, and recordings.
Note: All exercises assume familiarity with R, RStudio notebooks, and introductory demography concepts, such as the life table. We recommend starting with the pre-workshop notes and instructions and pre-workshop exercises.
Day 1 — Population dynamics and stable population theory
- Lecture, Part 1, Growth and warm-up (w/ exercises)
- Lecture, Part 2, The Leslie matrix and projection (w/ exercises)
- Lecture, Part 3, Eigendecomposition of the Leslie matrix (w/ exercises)
Day 2 — Mortality modeling and COVID-19
- Lecture, Part 1, Stable theory and per capita mortality (w/ exercises)
- Lecture, Part 2, Entropy of the Life Table (w/ exercises)
- Lecture, Part 3, Loss of remaining life (w / exercises)
Day 3 — Application and extensions of the formal models
- Josh Goldstein: Lecture, Fertility after a shock
- Dennis Feehan: Lecture, Length-biased sampling and the average lifespan of the living
Day 4 – Research Talks
- Annette Baudisch: “Formal demography as tool to innovate measures & concepts of lifespan and aging” [Slides] [Recording]
- Roland Rau: “Addressing Policy Questions with Formal Demography (with Examples in R)” [Slides] [Handout] [Recording]
- Jenna Nobles: “Pregnancy in a Pandemic: Fertility, Fecundity, and Infant Health during COVID-19” [Slides] [Recording]
- Patrick Heuveline: “Interpreting Changes in Life Expectancy During Temporary Mortality Shocks” [Slides] [Recording]
- Panel: “COVID-19 Pandemic: Did demographers rise to the challenge or did we drop the ball?”, Robert Chung, Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, Andrew Noymer (Chair: Ken Wachter) [Recording Part 1] [Recording Part 2]
Day 5 — Research Talks
- Ron Lee: “How future population change will affect the global economy: some lessons from NTA (National Transfer Accounts)” [Slides] [Recording]
- Elizabeth Wrigley-Field: “Racial Disparities in Mortality in US Cities During the 1918 Pandemic” [Slides] [Recording]
- Panel: “Pathways in formal demography”, Josh Goldstein, Dennis Feehan, Ayesha Mahmud [Recording]
The Berkeley Workshop in Formal Demography is funded by the NICHD R25HD083136 and co-sponsored by the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA) and the Berkeley Population Center.