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Organizers: Graziella Caselli (IUSSP), Heiner Maier (MPIDR)

Date: 20 August - 28 August 2007

Place: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

August 20-25 (Monday through Saturday):

1. Joshua Goldstein: Fertility
2. Shripad Tuljapurkar: Biodemography
3. James R. Carey: Analysis of Aging in Wild Populations
4. Annette Baudisch: Age Schedules of Growth and Senescence
5. Francesco Billari: Recent Directions in Modelling Family Dynamics
6. Vladimir Canudas Romo: Decomposition of Population Changes and Differences

Sunday free

August 27-28 (Monday and Tuesday):

7. Noël Bonneuil: What Time for the Economic Life Cycle?
8. James Vaupel: Forecasting

Applicants should either be enrolled in a PhD program (those well on their way to completion will be favored) or have received their PhD not more than 3 years ago.
• A maximum of 25 students will be admitted.
• The selection will be made by Max Plank Institute and IUSSP based on the applicants’ scientific qualifications.

Applications must be sent to the MPIDR. All applications must be made by email. Begin your email message with a statement saying that you apply for the Joint IUSSP-MPIDR Summer School. You also need to include the following two documents, either in the text of the email or as attached documents. (1) A two-page curriculum vitae, including a list of your scholarly publications. (2) A one-page statement of your research and how it relates to the Joint IUSSP-MPIDR Summer School.
• Send your email to Heiner Maier: office@imprs-demogr.mpg.de
• Application deadline is 31 March 2007. Late applications cannot be considered.
• The MPIDR will screen the applications and forward all applications and a selection of suitable candidates to the IUSSP by 20 April 2007
• The IUSSP will approve this list by 15 May 2007
• Applicants will be informed of their acceptance by 31 May 2007

Scholarships:
The following institutions have awarded a total of 20 scholarships:

• IUSSP: 5 scholarships
• MPIDR: 10 scholarships
• INED: 5 scholarships

A scholarship is worth up to 1600 Euro. These scholarships will cover transportation costs plus daily expenses in Rostock – up to a maximum of 1600 Euro.

The activity will be organised as follows:

• Morning lectures: 9.00 - 12.00
• Break for exercises, local group discussions and readings
• Evening lectures and general discussion: 16.00 - 18.00

Program of the lectures:

1. Mathematical models of individual and cohort fertility
2. Tempo effects
3. Consequences of fertility change on population growth and age structure

Morning:
1. Evolution of senescence, classical theory
2. Effects of variable environments, two-sex theory
3. Dynamic heterogeneity over the life cycle

Afternoon/Evening:
4. Computer exercise
5. Discussion of current research papers by students

1. Brief overview of demographic concepts in animal ecology and evolution
2. Residual demography and captive cohorts
3. The population life table
4. Deconvolution model for age structure estimates
5. Demography of mark-recapture
6. Construction and use of event-history charts for field data

Exercises:
Analysis of capture-recapture data; plotting event-history graphs;
age structure estimation using deconvolution model; sensitivity analysis.

Morning:
1. Introduction to Evolutionary Demography
2. Classical evolutionary theories of senescence
3. Challenges to these theories
4. Size matters
5. Several optimization models based on size/growth

Afternoon/Evening
7. Practical exercise on modelling mortality and fertility
8. Presentation and discussion of results

1. The use of agent-based (and related micro-simulation) techniques for the analysis of family dynamics. General discussion of the motivation for an "Agent-Based Computational Demography" emphasizing the micro-macro link and of the connections to non-human demography
2. The use of simultaneous hazard (multilevel and multi-process) and other statistical approaches (e.g., sequence analysis) for the analysis of family dynamics and related life course trajectories
Recent research papers will be used for lectures. The computer lab will be used for a basic introduction to the relevant software on both topics.

Morning
Decomposition methods:
1. Discrete versus continuous perspective
2. What and how to decompose?
3. Multi-regional decomposition
Life tables and decomposition methods:
4. Mean, median and mode of the distribution of deaths
5. Life expectancy decomposition
6. Changes over time in the three measures of central tendency.

Afternoon/Evening
“Ready to decompose?”
1. Looking for the Right Data
2. R-coding of Simple Decompositions
3. How to Present the Results?

Requirements: basic calculus and some programming is highly recommended, but not essential.
Suggested readings: students will be given readings based on the most recent developments in this area. The extended break at noon can be used to consult these.

Morning:
1. Dynamics of the economic life cycle

Afternoon/Evening:
2. Exercises (mathematics, maple, or a program language recommended)
2.1. Malthus/Boserup: a dynamic system
2.2. Dynamics of fertility fluctuations since 1930
2.3. The nomad way of life: a controlled dynamics for survival

Morning:
1. General principles of forecasting life expectancy and age-specific death rates

Afternoon/Evening:
2. The Lee-Carter (LC) approach to forecasting mortality
3. The Vaupel-Oeppen-Andreev-Torri (VOAT) approach to forecasting mortality