The demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

Gustav Feichtinger, Vienna University of Technology
Maria E. Winkler-Dworak, Vienna Institute of Demography
Alexia Fuernkranz-Prskawetz, Vienna Institute of Demography
Inga Freund, Vienna Institute of Demography
Vladimir Veliov, Vienna University of Technology

In a hierarchical organization whose total membership size remains constant the annual intake is strictly determined by the number of deaths and a statutory retirement age. There is a fundamental dilemma of two conflicting goals of a constant-sized age-structured population, to keep a young age-structure while to guarantee a high recruitment rate. In this paper we first present a reconstruction of the population of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 1847 to 2005. Based on alternative scenarios of the age distribution of incoming members we project the population of the Austrian Academy forward in time. We conclude our paper by introducing an age-structured optimal control model to determine the optimal trade-off between the rate of replacement and the mean age of a constant-sized population. It turns out that it is optimal to elect either young or old aged new members.