This repository contains material for the computer labs of the module "Bayesian projection methodology", a part of the 2025/2026 program of the European Doctoral School of Demography. The module takes place in the week of May 18, 2026, in Paris, France.
In the computer labs, we will generate probabilistic population projections for all 19 NUTS-3 regions of Finland, including probabilistic projections of the individual components of population change, such as the total fertility rate, life expectancy at birth and net migration.
The projections are generated using the programming language R. The most convenient way to work with R is from the RStudio Desktop. Basic familiarity with R is recommended.
To install packages needed in these labs, open your R application and type
install.packages(c("bayesTFR", "bayesLife", "bayesPop",
"MortCast", "bayesMig", "devtools"), dependencies = TRUE)
The latest UN projections (WPP 2024) are available in the wpp2024 R package. Install it via:
options(timeout = 600)
devtools::install_github("PPgp/wpp2024")
Check that you have the latest versions installed, for example by typing
library(bayesPop)
library(wpp2024)
sessionInfo()
You should see versions of the above packages. Check that they are as follows:
wpp2024_1.1-3 bayesPop_12.0-1 MortCast_2.8-0 bayesLife_5.3-1
bayesTFR_7.4-4
To organize our work, let's set up a working directory, called "EDSDbayespop", which can be done by cloning this repository:
git clone https://github.com/PPgp/EDSDbayespop EDSDbayespop
Alternatively, one can clone it directly from an R Studio via File -> New Project -> Version Control -> Git. As repository URL enter https://github.com/PPgp/EDSDbayespop and as Project directory name enter EDSDbayespop. Then click on "Create Project".
Both of these alternatives create a directory "EDSDbayespop" which will be your working directory for the labs. The subnational input datasets for Finland needed in these labs are contained in its "inputs/FINdata" sub-directory.
For projecting the total fertility rate and life expectancy at birth (e0), national probabilistic projections are needed and they should be placed into the subdirectory "inputs/wpp2024_projections". They could be generated from scratch, but to save time, please download them from our website as follows:
- Download the TFR compressed file and unpack it (e.g. using 7-Zip or WinZip on Windows or "tar xvfz" on Unix-based systems) into the "EDSDbayespop/inputs/wpp2024_projections" directory. It creates a subdirectory called "TFR1unc".
- Repeat the same with the e0 file. It creates a subdirectory called "e01".
After these steps, your "EDSDbayespop" directory should look like this:
Go to the labs material (login credentials available during the course)