THE COHORT APPROACH TO POPULATION-GROWTH - A RETROSPECTIVE DECOMPOSITION OF GROWTH-RATES FOR SWEDEN

Demographic changes affect population growth not only during the same period, but also in later years. A method for measuring those later affects is developed in this paper, by adopting a cohort perspective of population growth and decomposing the current growth rate into contributions of past demographic changes. Its application to 210 years of Swedish demographic history indicates that events several decades ago could exert substantial impacts on current population growth. The decomposition results reflect some typical patterns of demographic and epidemiological transitions as well as such historically unique events as the baby boom of the mid-1940s and the emigration boom to the United States. In addition, the results provide a quantitative explanation for the puzzling combination of the positive actual and negative intrinsic growth rates in recent Sweden.