Concept of the agent-based model “Digital demographic twin of the Vologda region"

Studies, aimed at creating realistic models of society to forecast scenarios of demographic development and testing various options of controlling influences on it, is becoming particularly relevant in the context of demographic challenges (depopulation, population ageing, declining birth rate, decreasing contribution of migration to compensate for natural population loss) and the need to achieve strategic national priorities in the demographic sphere. Such an opportunity is provided by digital demographic twins - agent-based models, which are laid the foundations for simulation of individual behavior of separate agents - members of society. Such models serve as a platform for conducting experiments in the sphere of demographic processes management and, consequently, as a tool to support managerial decision-making. The aim of the paper is to substantiate the concept and program implementation of the agent-based model simulating the region’s demographic development (the Vologda Region), designed to test the managerial impact on it. The article considers examples of foreign and Russian agent-based models. Despite the existing developments, it is still relevant the construction of digital demographic twins for individual constituent entities of the Russian Federation, especially for the regions of demographic disadvantage. We present the concept of the agent-based model “Digital Demographic Twin of the Vologda Region”: its structural blocks (simulation of population reproduction and migration behavior, simulation of external influences - immigration), types of agents (agents-people and agents-territories) and their properties, characteristics of the external environment, list the main assumptions and limitations of the model, methods of simulation of demographic processes, pay special attention to the scheme of agent-human behavior. We describe the design of the model, and disclose the main parameters of its software implementation. The advantages of the model include the following: taking into account their demographic states and transitions between them when simulating the behavior of agents-people; using data from sociological monitoring surveys; using the new software environment GamaPlatform for modeling; taking into account the territorial factor in modeling and the possibility of detailing the model at different levels.