Periodo 2003 – 2007 Administración de José Francisco Zúñiga

Fiala Tomáš

Abstract:

This paper brings the prognosis of the development of the number and of the age structure of information scientists in the Czech Republic. The estimate of the initial age structure is given in the first chapter. The second chapter is dedicated to the prognosis on the following few next years.

Key words:

information scientist, age structure, population projection

1. Estimate of the age structure of information scientists in 2006

For carrying out demographic analyses it is necessary to know or to estimate not only the present total number of information scientists, but also their age structure, as accurately as possible, preferably according to age units. It would be ideal to know also sex structure, but data of this type are not available and we shall not therefore differentiate the structure by sex.

The only available data on the composition of information scientists were data from the expert survey for IT professions (see Table 1).

Table 1. Age structure of employees in IT professions in the expert survey

Age category Number of firms

Physical num- ber of employ- ees Ratios of physi- cal numbers Converted num- ber of employ- ees Ratios of con- verted numbers Less then 20 17 83 0,37% 19,7948 0,10% 20–29 649 5 644 25,18% 4 296,2283 22,06% 30–39 886 7 390 32,97% 6 634,2515 34,06% 40–49 797 4 859 21,68% 4 457,0465 22,88% 50–59 614 3 869 17,26% 3 582,0523 18,39% 60 and more 184 572 2,55% 489,2850 2,51% Total x 22 417 100,00% 19 478,6584 100,00%

Source: expert surevey

For demographic analysis it is necessary to have an unequivocally set upper and lower limit for all intervals (including the first and the last). In all the considerations given below we have assumed the usual course of school attendance – in other words beginning at the age of 6, completion of elementary school at 15 years, school-leaving exam (maturita) at 19 years, completion of higher vocational college or a bachelor’s degree at university at the age of 22 and finally the completion of a master’s degree at university at the age of 24.

We took it that an information scientist has at least a secondary education and therefore enters employment at earliest after the school-leaving exam, i.e. at the age of 19. For this rea- son we considered all information scientists under the age of 20 to be only 19-year-olds (and not younger). The upper limit of the oldest age-group will depend on retirement age. Informa- tion scientists will be more often men than women and the retirement age for men at present is close to 62 years. For the sake of simplicity we have therefore assumed that all information scientists retire at the age of 62, meaning that in the age-group of 60 years and over there are only 60–61-year-olds.

For more accurate demographic analysis it is good to estimate the distribution of infor- mation scientists in the wider age-groups into one-year age-groups. We may assume that the distribution of the information scientists of the appropriate group according to units of age is

relative to the distribution of the all citizens of the Czech Republic in this age-group accord- ing to age units. In the 20–29-year-old age-group, however, this does not apply; The number of information scientists of the given age will depend to a considerable extent on the level of education already completed at this age with the usual course of school attendance. At each age from 20 years there may be information scientists who entered employment immediately after completing secondary school. But only from the age of 22 years can they also be gradu- ates of higher vocational colleges or bachelor degree courses who are not continuing their studies, and only from the age of 24 will there be “added” graduates with master’s degrees. The results of the given estimates are given in Table 2.

Table 2: Estimate of the more detailed age structure of 20–29-year-old employees in IT pro- fessions in the expert survey

Number of information scientists

according to highest completed level of education Age group Number of citi-

zens in CR Secondary Vocational + Bac. Mgr. Total 19 133 059 83 0 0 83 20–21 274 047 171 0 0 171 22–23 280 333 175 570 0 745 24–29 1 007 473 628 2 050 2 050 4 728 Total 20–29 1 561 853 974 2 620 2 050 5 644

Source: expert survey, Czech Statistical Office, own computations

Now we are able to make an estimate of the distribution of information scientists in the CR in 2006 according to the above-mentioned age-groups. According to estimates there were in all 233 100 information scientists in the Czech Republic in 2006. We divide this number into age-groups (with the above-mentioned division of the 20–29 group into 20–21, 22–23 and 24–29) in the same ratio as the number of 22 417 information scientists is divided in the expert survey. The results are given in Table 3.

Table 3: Estimate of distribution of information scientists in the CR in 2006 according to age

Expert survey of information scientists Information scientists of CR in 2006 Age group Number of citizens of CR Physical numbers Age structure (in %) Converted numbers Share of con- verted (in % of physical numbers) Physical numbers Converted numbers Share in number of citizens of CR of given age (in %) 19 133 059 83 0,37 20 23,85 863 206 0,65 20–21 274 047 171 0,76 41 23,85 1 778 424 0,65 22–23 280 333 745 3,32 567 76,12 7 749 5 898 2,76 24–29 1 007 473 4 728 21,09 3 688 78,01 49 162 38 351 4,88 30–39 1 556 304 7 390 32,97 6 634 89,77 76 844 68 985 4,94 40–49 1 365 783 4 859 21,68 4 457 91,73 50 526 46 346 3,70 50–59 1 557 909 3 869 17,26 3 582 92,58 40 231 37 247 2,58 60–61 256 505 572 2,55 489 85,54 5 948 5 088 2,32 Total 6 431 413 22 417 100,00 19 479 86,89 233 100 202 546 3,62

Source: expert survey, Czech Statistical Office, own computations

The share of the converted figure in the 6th column of this table was (with the exception of the partial age-groups of the 20–29 year interval) calculated on the basis of Table 1 as the share of the converted and physical numbers for the given age. For the age-group of the 20– 21-year-olds the share of the converted numbers was assumed to be the same as for the 19- year-olds, for the 22–23-year-old group it was assumed to be the same as the share for the whole group of 20–29-year-olds from Table 1. For the age-group of the 24–29-year-olds the share of the converted figures was calculated so that the total number of converted figures at the age of 20–29 years was equal to the appropriate value from Table 1 (i.e. 4 296,2283).

The distribution of physical numbers of information scientists in the CR in 2006 accord- ing to age was carried out according to the structure for the expert survey, the converted num- bers were calculated by multiplying the physical numbers by the shares of converted numbers (again according to the expert survey). Interesting information is provided by the last column (share of information scientists in the number of citizens of the CR of the given age).

The proportion of information scientists declines from the age of 30 with increasing age and it can therefore be seen that the younger the population the larger the proportion of them that are employed in the sphere of informatics. The proportion of 24–29-year-old information scientists is not, however, larger than the proportion of 30–39-year-olds. It is possible that some information scientists complete their studies or begin their working career as an infor- mation scientist later than the usual time for completion of studies, i.e. later than the age of 24. This may, however, also be evidence that in the last generation the proportion of informa- tion scientists is no longer rising, but stagnating. This must then be seen as a certain “warn- ing” for the future. The generations embarking on economic activity will be fewer and fewer in number. If the proportion of information scientists in the population does not grow, then the number of “new” information scientists will continue to decline in the future.

Table 3 has the age-groups selected in such a way that within each of them we may as- sume that the distribution of the number of persons according to units of age is proportional to the distribution of the entire population of this age-group according to units of age. On the ba- sis of this assumption an estimate was made of the distribution of information scientists in the CR according to units of age. The calculated values were balanced with the moving average method because the growth (or decline) of the share of information scientists depending on age was certainly rather smoother than jumpy. The result is depicted in Graph 1.

Graph 1. Estimate of the age structure of information scientists in the CR in 2006

Source: own computations

It is clear from the graph at first glance that in the near future one may expect a rela- tively marked increase in the number of information scientists leaving for retirement. (This will be due to the fact that post-war generations, strong in numbers, will be reaching retire- ment age.) The following chapter is devoted to this in greater detail. From the graph it is also evident that the numbers of information scientists aged around 30 achieve values of 8–9 thou-

sand for each unit of age. Clearly, then, a number of present information scientists acquired their education in another fashion than by completing the appropriate school (or moved into the country from abroad). Otherwise around the year 2000 the annual number of graduates in subjects concerning informatics would have to have been around 9 000, which probably does not correspond to reality.

2. Projection of development in the next years

We are assuming that every information scientist works in his profession until he retires and that therefore a drop in the number of information scientists occurs only as the result of death or of reaching retirement age at 62. We are not considering the emigration or immigra- tion of information scientists. The proportion of men among information scientists is certainly higher than the proportion of men in the population. On the other side the life expectation of persons with higher education is somewhat higher than the life expectation of the whole popu- lation (regardless of education). In particular the life expectation of men with secondary or university education is roughly at the level of the life expectation of women regardless of education. For the projection of the mortality of information scientists were therefore used the life tables for women in the CR (regardless of education) and a further growth of the life ex- pectation was assumed. The results of the projection of the decline in information scientists are shown in the following table and graphs.

Table 4. Expected changes in the number of employees in IT professions in 2007–2010

Year 2007 2008 2009 2010

Number on 1st January 233 100 233 208 233 448 233 204

New young graduates 3 495 3 499 3 993 4 206

Deaths 383 386 391 389

Reaching retirement age 3 005 2 873 3 846 3 966

Increase(+)/Decrease(-) 108 240 -244 -148

Source: own computations

We see that whereas the number of information scientists dying would be roughly around 400 a year, the number of information scientists retiring will increase roughly from 3 000 to 4 000. It is probable that the increase will not be so sudden, rather smoother, but in any case the number of information scientists taking up retirement in the next few years will increase.

We assume that all the information scientists who have died or retired should be re- placed by young graduates from various schools (we are not considering, then, immigration from abroad or the situation where they are replaced by an older graduate who has not worked in informatics before). What would the numbers of graduates need to be?

Let us consider that roughly 57% of these young “new” information scientists should be university graduates and the remaining roughly 43% would be information scientists without university education (i.e. graduates of further education colleges, unsuccessful students from bachelor courses, etc.). Experience shows that roughly only 20% of graduates with bachelor’s degrees take up employment immediately. The remaining 80% continue with the two years of master’s studies, which 90% of them complete successfully and they therefore start working after these two years.

With regard to the expected marked increase in the number of information scientists re- tiring at the end of this decade the annual number of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in in- formatics subjects should already this year be around 2 200 and in further years around 2 400 of them are needed each year. In the second half of the next decade the annual number of graduates should rise further up to 2 800.

At the same time not every student accepted for bachelor studies will complete the course successfully. Experience shows that only around 60% of those admitted actually com-

plete their bachelor studies. The numbers of students admitted to bachelor studies should therefore be considerably higher (and, of course, grow adequately “in advance”). See Graph 2.

Graph 2. Required numbers of those admitted to bachelor studies in informatics and their share in the total population of the appropriate age

Source: own computations

We can see that at present the number admitted for bachelor study of informatics should be around 4 000 a year. But already in the second half of the next decade this should increase gradually to 4 500 and at the end of the second decade come close to the value of 5 000. With regard to the decline in the number of young people in the population and the competition among universities it will clearly be increasingly difficult to acquire suitable candidates for studies. At present it is enough for around 3% of the 19-year-olds to begin studying informat- ics. In the first half of the next decade, however, this proportion should rise to over 5%.

3. References

FIALA, T. 2006. Dva přístupy modelování vývoje úmrtnosti v populační projekci a jejich apli-

kace na populaci ČR. Bratislava 05.10.2006 – 06.10.2006. In: Forum Statisticum Slovacum

4/2006. Bratislava : Slovenská štatistická a demografická spoločnosť, 2006, s. 44–55. ISSN

1336-7420.

Address of the author:

RNDr. Tomáš Fiala, CSc. Department of Demography

Faculty of Informatics and Statistics University of Economics, Prague nám. W. Churchilla 4

130 67 Praha 3 Czech Republic [email protected]

This article came into being within the framework of the long-term research project 2D06026, "Reproduction of Human Capital", financed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport within the framework of National Research Program II.