Modeling the Population of Mauritius

Prinz, C. (1992). Modeling the Population of Mauritius. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-92-043

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Abstract

Within IIASA's project on "Population and Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Mauritius" an interactive software tool describing the dynamics of population-development-environment interactions was developed. In contrast to similar existing models, population is not only an input variable but it is a driving force of the system.

The population module provides the structure of the population by age, sex, level of education and labor force participation. For the future, different levels of fertility, mortality, migration, progression in education and labor force entrance and exit can easily be specified by the user. Changes in those variables in the past have been remarkable. Dependency ratios, calculated in several levels of refinement, show an amazing decline over the period 1962-1990. With different demographic developments, the past three decades would not have brought a significant decline in dependency ratios and may thus possibly have hindered or at least delayed economic development.

In the coming decades the population of Mauritius will grow by some 30-40 per cent and it will age considerably. Changes in the socio-demographic composition of the population caused by recent and expected changes in the education and labor force distribution, however, indicate that further economic development is strongly favored during the next two decades.

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