New Stuff from the UN Population Division

The Population Division of the United Nations has just released a new set of publications on fertility and family planning. For the most part, these are analyses based on the 2012 Revision of World Population Prospects that are available online for you to analyze on your own. However, the advantage of these reports is that the people who put those data together are putting together the analyses and this can be extremely useful--not to mention a lot less trouble than doing it yourself.

Some of the highlights include:

* Fertility Levels and Trends as Assessed in the 2012 Revision of World Population Prospects is a concise analysis of fertility levels and trends in World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision, and includes estimates of the contribution of fertility to future population growth.
Please see http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/fertility/Fertility-levels-and-trends_WPP2012.pdf

* World Fertility Report 2012 describes changes in key indicators of fertility, marriage and union formation, contraceptive use and relevant population policies for 198 countries over the past 40 years, covering a period of extraordinary change. The report, country profiles and relevant data tables are all available at http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/dataset/fertility/wfr2012/MainFrame.html

* Adolescent Fertility since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo presents new estimates of the levels and trends in adolescent fertility worldwide over the past 20 years and highlights key social and demographic factors underlying adolescent fertility, including early marriage, the timing and context of first sex, contraceptive use and education. Please see http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/fertility/Report_Adolescent-Fertility-since-ICPD.pdf

* Expert Group Meeting on "Fertility, changing population trends and development: challenges and opportunities for the future" brought together experts to address key questions about the future pace of fertility change, implications for age structure changes and other population trends and effective policy responses. A report on the meeting and presentations are available here:http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/expert-group/21/index.shtml, and this includes a set of expert reports.

Now we know how to spend the weekend--enjoy!