Modeling and forecasting the local population profile: integrate the "housing" variable. The case of Vernon, France

Noémie De Andrade, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED) and Université de Strasbourg

At local level, policy makers are expected to anticipate the social needs of their population and a willingness to adapt policies to local population profiles is considered a dynamic approach to policy-making. Local decision-makers want to have more and more prospective elements in order to anticipate social needs and to be able to integrate various factors into a consistent policy intervention approach. Population projections are already a tool used to foreseen the structure of a population and to monitor or envisage public policies but they have some limitations: the aim of this research is to project the population by type of recipiants and social profiles of the population in order to determine social needs at short and medium-term, at various geographical scales and sociodemographic contexts. The method used is microsimulation modelling in part because it provides a lot of flexibility in the design of the projection and allows for a lot of variables to be included by keeping all the characteristics which are associated to the people and the household. The proposed model is a closed and discrete demographic model, applied to the whole population of a local territory and will mainly rely on both census data and administrative data but when available, surveys run at local level will be used. The results of the model will serve locals authorities with the aim of identifying, for example, needs of dependent elderly living in their own home which would need meals on wheels, health and social care services, etc., the evolution of single-parent families and of the women’s professional activity to adapt the offer in childcare services (specific offer, hours adapted, etc.).