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Demography 399
Let us take the case of the preparation of a projection of the active popula-
tion in relation to a production plan. The demographer can, of course, extrap-
olate curves of activity .rates and calculate the labour force available, on the
basis of a population projection according to sex and age. This method is
perhaps acceptable from the global standpoint; but it is no longer so when we
come to the different branches of economic activity. For some years past, the
economists have been drawing up tables showing the exchanges between differ-
ent branches in terms of monetary units. As long as these same tables are not
drawn up in terms of working hours, it will be impossible to know what the
production of an extra ton of steel, for example, implies for the active popula-
tion. Account must also be taken of variations in productivity. Research in this
direction, particularly in France, is in its infancy.
143. The methods used in preparing a projection of the active population in
relation to a given training are even less precise. We are only just beginning to
study this connexion between training and economic activity (France, United
Kingdom, United States of America, Federal Republic of Germany, Mexico).
The achievement of definite results in this respect is becoming a matter of
urgency. It is to be feared that a considerable discrepancy wil be found between
the active population in relation to training received and the active population
in relation to the needs of production. This may well be the root cause of the
‘revolt’ of the younger generation that we are witnessing in almost all parts of
the world.
In the United Kingdom, foliowing the issue of the Robbins report on the
shortage of highly qualified personnel, a special research group of the London
School of Ec0nomics3~ carried out a survey on the factors of work production
in the electrical construction industry.
In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has calculated employment
forecasts for 1975, taking account, in particular, of the technological
advances to be expected in the coming years and using the double-entry table
showing the active population distributed according to occupation and branch
of economic activity (known as the ‘employment matrix’). A team from the
Population Research Center of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia
is also working on the subject. Boston’s Northeastern University has published
a work giving the same employment matrix in respect of some twenty developed
countries.
In France, the employment matrix has been used for preparing projections
of the active population by occupation. Similar projections have been prepared
in Japan.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, similar studies are being carried out by
the Institut fur ernpirische Soziologie at Nuremberg.
In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the planning of education is one of
the chief factors in economic development plans, though the employment matrix
does not seem to be used in this connexion. Apparently, projections relating
to skilled workers and middle- and higher-grade personnel are based merely
on a detailed analysis of the expected posts in production development.