Forecasting Births

A great deal of private and public expenditure is contingent upon the future number of births. In the short term, there are the costs and labour involved in the provision of pre-natal, maternity and post-natal services. Later, the number of births affects demand for early childhood education and care, then entries to primary school, secondary school and tertiary institutions. After 20 years or so, the number of births affects the number of new entrants to the labour force. For age-related services at older ages, there is a great deal of time to plan for the future and the future is relatively well defined by the current age distribution of the population. For child-related services, however, there is little time to plan and to adjust to movements in the annual number of births. Most child-related services are also relatively 'lumpy' in that they come in large blocks like schools or universities. It is therefore vital that countries and regions are able to forecast the future number of births with accuracy.