Human Capital Data Explorer

Data on the educational attainment of the population of some 200 countries (and regions) are now available for the period from 1950 to 2100 in the Version 2.0 of the Human Capital Data Explorer. This website presents a set of different scenarios (5) of future population and human capital trends from 2015 to 2100. The preliminary results of the population projections by levels of educational attainment were published in 2018 in Lutz, Goujon, KC, Stonawski, and Stilianakis (Eds.). Version 2.0 provides an update of the projections (scope, coverage and quality) also relying on the work presented in Lutz, Butz and KC in 2014 by a large team of researchers at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/OeAW, WU) and at other institutions. It also includes back projections from 2015 to 1950. More information in Speringer et al. 2019.

The Human Capital Data Explorer contains detailed data by age, sex and educational attainment (6 categories and up to 8 for 60 countries) for a large set of indicators:

• Population and Human Capital Stocks: Population size, median age, sex ratio, dependency ratio, educational attainment distribution, mean years of schooling, gender gap in education attainment.
• Demographic Change: Growth rate, natural increase, fertility rate, birth rate, mean age at child bearing, life expectancy, survival ratio, death rate, net migration.
• New aging indicators: Age when remaining life expectancy is below 15 years, proportion of population with a remaining life expectancy below 15 years.

The graphic explorer allows to visualize population pyramids and the population size by education for any country and to create maps about the available indicators. All graphics can be downloaded.

The present version (2.0) benefitted from the partnership with the Joint Research Centre in the Centre of Expertise on Population and Migration (CEPAM). On top of the assumptions about future trends in fertility, mortality, and education, the projections study the effect of several migration assumptions applied to the context of the set of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) scenarios related to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Further reading on the data from the global population projections by age, sex and education is provided in Lutz, Goujon, KC, Stonawski, and Stilianakis (Eds.) (2018) and in Speringer et al. (2019) for the reconstruction. Further features about the methodology can be found in Lutz, Butz, and K.C. (2014).