Population projections in Belgium and in France since the 1930s. Confrontation to reality and identification of errors

Bruno D. Schoumaker, Université Catholique de Louvain
Amel Bahri, Université Catholique de Louvain
François Peltier, Université catholique de Louvain

The overall objective of this paper is to compare results of official population projections produced in France and in Belgium since the 1930s to the observed populations, and to identify the sources of errors in the projections. This paper will focus on four specific objectives : (1) To measure the extent to which population projections differed from reality for the total population, and the population structure by age; (2) to identify the main components of demographic change (natality, mortality, migration) responsible for these errors; (3) to relate the errors in the components of demographic change to the historical context in which the projections were made; (4) to compare the errors in population projections in Belgium and in France and evaluate whether the same type of errors were made at similar periods in the two countries.