RWI Projektberichte

Existing nationwide population projections focus on highly aggregated spatial units. The most disaggregated nationwide study is provided by the German Federal Institute for Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Research (BBSR) and forecasts population at the county level until 2040 (BBSR, 2021). The Federal Statistical Office’s projections - the benchmark for German population projections - are limited to the entire country or to the federal states. Our novel data set offers a population projection with a resolution of one square kilometer up to 2060. Since many local socioeconomic characteristics show great spatial heterogeneity, as documented by RWI-GEO-GRID (RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, 2022), the need for a small-scale population forecast becomes apparent. We closely follow the assumptions on fertility, mortality and (out) migration of the German Federal Statistical Office, so that our forecast reflects those estimates at the national level, but provides detailed information about local communities, including gender and age structure. The generated data set is made available to researchers.

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