Quantifying Harvesting: Estimating and Forecasting the Effect of Mortality Shocks on Population Dynamics

Trifon I. Missov, Interdisciplinary Centre On Population Dynamics, University Of Southern Denmark

“Harvesting” denotes a specific type of mortality displacement when a sudden shock eliminates imminently a higher than anticipated number of individuals, especially those that are expected to die soon. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique setup to study harvesting in that the epidemic struck every country not just once, but in several waves. Using individual data from the Danish registers, this study develops dynamic models that identify (i) the subgroups that were more (less) prone to withstand the mortality shock in the first wave, (ii) how this changed in each subsequent wave, given the acquired immunity (through recovery or vaccines), (iii) how many waves harvesting affected, i.e., at what stage acquired immunity eliminated harvesting. The proposed models quantify the magnitude of the harvesting effect and serve as a basis for short- and mid-term mortality forecasts that can inform policy makers, should there be a new pandemic, about the structure of the vulnerable population, e.g., how many pensioners, and in what health, to expect in the years to come, what causes of death have been affected by the pandemic, or what diseases must the health system pay attention to.

Keywords: Mathematical demography , Population projections, forecasts, and estimations, Population, Shocks and Pandemics

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