Simulation of Population Changes in Iran using Basic Agent-Based Model

Estimating and projecting population size in future is utmost important for governments, because  majority of government programs and plans have a close  relationship with population and its dynamics. The aim of this paper is to project the trend of population changes and population structure over the next 50 years using Agent-Based Simulation model. The model enables to analyse different scenarios of population changes, provide as strcutural model of changes,  modeling with heterogeneous entities and provide more realistic results because of probabilistic modeling. Simulation results was compared to projection results under different scenarios conducted by the Statistical Center of Iran. The results showed a significant correlation between the two which indicates the validity of simulation model. The results also indicated that  age at marriage does not have a significant correlation with the trend of population growth in next 15 year, while  in longer term, there will be a significant correlation  Analysis of the model indicate that Agent-Based Simulation can create probabilistic, heterogeneous with policy analysis features analytical framework which can simulate annual data with minimum cost and in a virtual mean.