The Centre for Actuarial Research and Demographic teaching and research in South Africa

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The Centre for Actuarial ResearchandDemographic
teaching and research in South Africa
Centre for Actuarial Research (CARe) A Research
Unit of the University of Cape Town
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Outline

• Background and overview of CARe
• History
• Focus areas
• Research outputs
• Demographic teaching and research
• UCT
• Other universities in South Africa (briefly)

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History of CARe

• Started in 2001
• Three directors and one RA
• Four strands (Health care financing, Social
  security, Demography, HIV/AIDS modelling)
• Evolved into current structure
• Director
• Three Senior Lecturers
• Two Senior Researchers
• Two Research Assistants and post doctoral
  fellowships

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History of CARe

• Focus now on AIDS modelling and demography
• Unique, in that we have a teaching programme
  embedded in a research unit
• reflects the awkwardness of locating technical
  demography as a discipline
• demography is an interdiscipline Stycos (1989)
• but also the importance we attach to the
  symbiosis between research and teaching
• it works well

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Focus Demographic research

• Demographic research and teaching
• Director, Senior Lecturers and post-doctoral
  fellows are the demographers
• Although we each have interests in the focus
  areas of others, we each have specialist
  interests fertility (TM) and mortality and
  population projections (RD)
• Much research involves estimation and
  interpretation of results, but we have particular
  interests in interrogating and improving the
  methods of estimation and in devising methods for
  interrogating data quality
• We are all responsible for teaching and
  supervision

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Demographic research

• Overarching themes
• Improvement of old, and derivation of new,
  methods of estimating demographic parameters from
  limited and defective data
• Derivation of population estimates
• Production of fertility and mortality rates for
  SA
• Mortality
• Reconciliation of mortality data from Southern
  and Eastern Africa with estimates from the UN
• Establishing impact of HIV/AIDS on mortality and
  interventions on that
• Fertility
• Patterns of childbearing in Southern and Eastern
  Africa
• Methods and motives for contraceptive use
• Migration
• Internal and international migration in SA

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Focus

• HIV/AIDS modelling
• Leigh Johnson and RD are involved in developing
  and using the HIV/AIDS models
• HIV/AIDS research has been contentious in South
  Africa (possibly none more so than the production
  of estimates of the numbers of infected, sick and
  dying)
• The model we work on derives from and is released
  under the auspices of the Actuarial Society of
  South Africa (ASSA)
• More on this in another session

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Focus

• Other activities
• Research consulting
• Recent NACA/UNDP Botswana, Gauteng government
• Past BER, Stats SA, PGWC, Cape Metro, SAAVI,
  various small contracts
• Research seminar series
• Around 12-15 a year, 4-6 international visitors
  p.a.
• This year so far Wolfgang Lutz (IIASA, AAS),
  Gigi Santow, Ian Timaeus (LSHTM) and Michael
  Bracher
• Others e.g. Simon Gregson (Imperial, Zim MRC),
  Bob McCaa (U Minnesota), Tim Dyson (LSE), Sam
  Clark (U Washington), David Lam (U Michigan),
  Simon Sreter (Oxford), Cedeplar
• Publication of monographs, occasional papers, etc
• SAJD

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Research highlights

• Significant contributions (with MRC) to the
  definitive work on burden of disease and cause of
  death in South Africa
• Publications in highly rated international
  journals Population Studies Demographic
  Research Journal of Southern African Studies
  Sexually Transmitted Infections AIDS
• Significant monographs written for Stats SA (2)
  and the Medical Research Council (2), one of
  which has been downloaded more than 20 000 times
  (by the time counting stopped!)

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Funding

• Four main sources
• Significant research contracts
• Other research contracts to undertake small
  projects
• Short courses (although primary concern is to
  cross-subsidise participation)
• Funding from Mellon and Hewlett Foundations to
  support the development of (particularly teaching
  of) technical demography posts and scholarships

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Collaboration

• Africa Centre (DSS in northern KwaZulu-Natal)
• Memorandum of Understanding
• projects modelling, validation
• Graduate student from UCT working there as
  demographer
• Dikgale (DSS in Limpopo province, SA)
• LSHTM Ian Timæus
• University of Washington Sam Clark Adrian
  Raftery
• Cedeplar

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Collaboration

• Others
• Wolfgang Lutz (IIASA)
• UN Population Division
• UNAIDS Reference Group on Estimates, Modelling
  and Projections
• South Africa
• MRC, HSRC, Stats SA, SAAVI
• DoH, DoSD, National Treasury
• TAC, C A S E, Childrens Institute, DataFirst,
  Saldru, BER
• ASSA
• Other Mellon-funded University programmes (Wits,
  UKZN)
• Other
• INDEPTH, Other Hewlett-funded institutions in
  Africa (Wits, University of Nairobi, Gold Coast)

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Demography at UCT

• Demography in South Africa was highly politicised
  during the apartheid era
• Seen to be politically compromised
• No teaching or training (and very little
  research) into demography at English-speaking
  universities in South Africa until after 1994
• Then UNFPA funding of several institutions not
  UCT - followed by grants from the Andrew W Mellon
  Foundation to three institutions in South Africa
  (KZN, Wits, UCT)
• Regarded as a scarce skill in South Africa

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Demography at UCT

• At UCT, some research had been done on demography
  in the late 1980s and 1990s
• historical demography, using mission station
  church records to reconstruct mortality trends at
  the end of the 19th century
• derivation of national life tables
• leadership role in the development of the ASSA
  Aids and demographic model from the mid-1990s on
• collaborative work with the MRC.
• but no structured teaching, training or
  research programme

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Demography at UCT

• The Mellon grants changed this
• 1st grant (1998-2001) largely used to run a
  detailed demographic, economic and anthropometric
  study in the Southern Cape
• First trained demographer employed in 2000, a
  joint appointment between the School of Economics
• 2nd grant (2001-4) split, broadly, between CARe
  (teaching) and Saldru (research)
• MPhil in demography launched in 2003
• First doctoral students enrolled
• 3rd Mellon grant, 2004-7 continues in same vein
• Mellon funding ends in 2007

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Demography at UCT

• Hewlett Foundation grants
• Further support for demographic teaching,
  training and research

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Rationale for CARes approach

• An audit of demographic training in Southern and
  Eastern Africa, conducted in 2004-5
• Focus is unique in the region
• The only institution engaged in teaching,
  training and research in technical demography
• Skills in technical demography are being lost,
  due in part to the post-Cairo consensus which
  prioritises reproductive health over demography
• But there is still a strong need for these skills
  to estimate demographic parameters, and to assist
  with planning but data are not getting any better

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Rationale for CARes approach

• Strong need for a (small) cadre of
  technically-sound demographers, trained to
• Carefully assess and analyse local census and
  survey data, to maximise the utility of this
  information in informing public policy
• Estimate demographic parameters and project
  populations
• Train future generations in these skills

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Programmes offered

• PhD in demography
• UK model 3 year independent research
• Coursework to ensure foundational knowledge
• Increasingly moving to a 13 model
• MPhil in demography
• 18 months, coursework and dissertation
• Emphasis on technical skills
• MCom in economics and demography
• Resuscitated and relaunched in 2005
• BSc in statistics and demography
• Designed as a long-term feeder for the MPhil

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MPhil in Demography

• 1st semester
• Basic demography
• Biostatistics for demographers
• Social research methods
• Topics in population studies
• Topics in Southern African demography

• 2nd semester
• Techniques of demographic estimation
• Population projections
• 3rd semester
• Dissertation

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(Selected) course contents

• Basic Demography
• Based on Preston, Heuveline and Guillot
• Foundational material
• Taught in 11 2-hour lectures
• 11 2-hour tutorials
• Examined via open-book, computer-based examination

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(Selected) course contents

• Demographic Estimation
• Indirect techniques starts with Manual X, but
  goes on to include Relational Gompertz models and
  projected parity progression ratios
  (Brass-Juarez) variable-r techniques, including
  Synthetic Extinct Generation methods.
• Emphasis on understanding assumptions and
  application of methods
• Student-derived spreadsheets no PASex!
• 24 2-hour lectures and 24 2-hour tutorials
  covered in 12 weeks.

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(Selected) course contents

• Population Projections
• Theory and methods of population projection
• Allowing for HIV/AIDS
• Use of different models
• Spectrum/EPP/AIM
• ASSA
• 12 2-hour lectures and 12 2-hour tutorials

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Current student research projects

• Doctoral Topics
• Child mortality in South Africa
• Ethnic variations in fertility in Zambia
• Masters Thesis Topics
• Fertility and birth intervals in Malawi
• Impact of HIV/AIDS on the orphanhood method of
  estimating adult mortality
• Household socio-economic determinants of
  mortality
• Fitting the ASSA model to Zimbabwe
• AIDS and demographic modeling of a DSS in rural
  South Africa

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Current student research projects

• Masters projects (continued)
• Analysis of deaths registered by health district
  in the Cape Town metropole
• Child mortality and birth spacing in Mozambique
• A new fertility schedule for use in demographic
  estimation models in developing countries
• Methods of child mortality estimation applied to
  Zambia and Malawi
• Fertility decline in Lesotho since the 1970s

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Other training, data access and collaborative
opportunities at CARe

• Short course on demographic modelling using the
  ASSA model
• Week-long course run every June-July
• Data First
• Resource centre dedicated to archiving census and
  survey data
• Holds most African DHS data, as well as large
  amounts of census data
• Visiting demographers
• CARe has resources to host visiting demographers
  for short-term visits (lt3 months) to assist in
  data analysis and/or interpretation

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Demographic teaching and research elsewhere in
South Africa

• Mellon-funded institutions (-2007)
• U. KwaZulu-Natal focus on population-poverty
  links
• U. Witwatersrand focus on public health and
  migration. Also funded by Hewlett (2005-)
• Other institutions
• University of the North-West
• University of the Western Cape
• Most of these institutions are relatively weak in
  the area of formal or technical demography