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Household Projections for Scotland 2008-based
2. Notes on the household projections
- Uses: Household projections are mainly used for informing local authority decisions about future housing need and service provision.
- Interpreting the projections: These household projections have limitations. A projection is a calculation showing what happens if particular assumptions are made. The household projections are based on the population projections and, as a result, assumptions used for the population projections, such as future migration, fertility and mortality, will have an effect on the household projections. The household projections rely on trends in household composition between the 1991 and 2001 Censuses and are not policy-based forecasts of what the Government expects to happen. They do not take into account social and economic factors that may influence the formation of households including policies adopted by both central and local government as well as any imbalances between housing supply and demand. In addition, projections for small groups are likely to be less reliable than those for larger groups.
- Method used: Household projections are produced every two years. This set of household projections has been prepared up to 2033, a projection period of 25 years. These household projections incorporate information from the latest (2008-based) population projections and the 2008 and 2009 household estimates. Information from the last two Censuses is also used to project trends in household composition. In previous household projections results were presented for 10 age bands, this has now been expanded to 16 age bands. More detailed information on new age bands that are possible is available in Section 6.
- Variant projections: This report focuses on the "principal projection" but also includes a section on household projections prepared using low and high migration variant population projections which demonstrate the uncertainty in the projections.
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