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Demography () is the statistical study of
population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction usi ...
s, especially
human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...
beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
,
nationality Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of t ...
,
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
, and ethnicity. Educational institutions usually treat demography as a field of sociology, though there are a number of independent demography departments. These methods have primarily been developed to study human populations, but are extended to a variety of areas where researchers want to know how populations of social actors can change across time through processes of birth, death, and migration. In the context of
human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...
biological populations, demographic analysis uses administrative records to develop an independent
estimate Estimation (or estimating) is the process of finding an estimate or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable. The value is nonetheless usable because it is de ...
of the population. Demographic analysis estimates are often considered a reliable standard for judging the accuracy of the
census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...
information gathered at any time. In the
labor force The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic ...
, demographic analysis is used to estimate sizes and flows of populations of workers; in population ecology the focus is on the birth, death, migration and immigration of individuals in a population of living organisms, alternatively, in social human sciences could involve movement of firms and institutional forms. Demographic analysis is used in a wide variety of contexts. For example, it is often used in business plans, to describe the population connected to the geographic location of the business. Demographic analysis is usually abbreviated as DA. For the 2010 U.S. Census, The U.S. Census Bureau has expanded its DA categories. Also as part of the 2010 U.S. Census, DA now also includes comparative analysis between independent housing estimates, and census address lists at different key time points. Patient demographics form the core of the data for any medical institution, such as patient and emergency contact information and patient medical record data. They allow for the identification of a patient and his categorization into categories for the purpose of statistical analysis. Patient demographics include: date of birth, gender, date of death, postal code, ethnicity, blood type, emergency contact information, family doctor, insurance provider data, allergies, major diagnoses and major medical history. Formal demography limits its object of study to the measurement of population processes, while the broader field of social demography or population studies also analyses the relationships between economic, social, institutional, cultural, and biological processes influencing a population.


History

Demographic thoughts traced back to antiquity, and were present in many civilisations and cultures, like
Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...
,
Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
and
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
. Made up of the prefix '' demo-'' and the suffix '' -graphy'', the term '' demography'' refers to the overall study of population. In ancient Greece, this can be found in the writings of
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...
, Thucydides,
Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...
, Epicurus, Protagoras,
Polus Polus (Greek: Πῶλος, "colt"; fl. c. 5th century BCE) was an ancient Greek philosophical figure best remembered for his depiction in the writing of Plato. He was a pupil of the famous orator Gorgias, and teacher of oratory from the city of ...
,
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
and
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
. In Rome, writers and philosophers like
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...
, Seneca, Pliny the Elder,
Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good E ...
, Epictetus, Cato, and Columella also expressed important ideas on this ground. In the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, Christian thinkers devoted much time in refuting the Classical ideas on demography. Important contributors to the field were William of Conches,Peter Biller,''The measure of multitude: Population in medieval thought

Bartholomew of Lucca,
William of Auvergne William of Auvergne (1180/90–1249) was a French theologian and philosopher who served as Bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death. He was one of the first western European philosophers to engage with and comment extensively upon Aristotelian ...
,
William of Pagula William of Pagula (died 1332), also known as William Paull or William Poull, was a 14th-century English canon lawyer and theologian best known for his written works, particularly his manual for priests entitled the '' Oculus Sacerdotis''. Pagula was ...
, and
Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
sociologists like Ibn Khaldun. One of the earliest demographic studies in the modern period was ''Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality'' (1662) by John Graunt, which contains a primitive form of
life table In actuarial science and demography, a life table (also called a mortality table or actuarial table) is a table which shows, for each age, what the probability is that a person of that age will die before their next birthday ("probability of de ...
. Among the study's findings were that one-third of the children in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
died before their sixteenth birthday. Mathematicians, such as Edmond Halley, developed the life table as the basis for life insurance mathematics. Richard Price was credited with the first textbook on life contingencies published in 1771, followed later by Augustus de Morgan, ''On the Application of Probabilities to Life Contingencies'' (1838). In 1755,
Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading int ...
published his essay '' Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.'', projecting exponential growth in British colonies. His work influenced
Thomas Robert Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book '' An Essay on the Principle of Population'', M ...
, who, writing at the end of the 18th century, feared that, if unchecked, population growth would tend to outstrip growth in food production, leading to ever-increasing famine and poverty (see
Malthusian catastrophe Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, c ...
). Malthus is seen as the intellectual father of ideas of
overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale ...
and the limits to growth. Later, more sophisticated and realistic models were presented by
Benjamin Gompertz Benjamin Gompertz (5 March 1779 – 14 July 1865) was a British self-educated mathematician and actuary, who became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Gompertz is now best known for his Gompertz law of mortality, a demographic model published in 1 ...
and Verhulst. In 1855, a Belgian scholar Achille Guillard defined demography as the natural and social history of human species or the mathematical knowledge of populations, of their general changes, and of their physical, civil, intellectual, and moral condition. The period 1860–1910 can be characterized as a period of transition where in demography emerged from statistics as a separate field of interest. This period included a panoply of international ‘great demographers’ like Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874), William Farr (1807–1883),
Louis-Adolphe Bertillon Louis-Adolphe Bertillon (; 1 April 1821 in Paris – 28 February 1883 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French statistician. Life He was born in Paris on the 1 April 1821. Entering the medical profession, he practised as a doctor for a number of years. ...
(1821–1883) and his son Jacques (1851–1922), Joseph Körösi (1844–1906), Anders Nicolas Kaier (1838–1919), Richard Böckh (1824–1907), Émile Durkheim (1858–1917),
Wilhelm Lexis Wilhelm Lexis (17 July 1837, Eschweiler, Germany – 24 August 1914, Göttingen, Germany), full name Wilhelm Hector Richard Albrecht Lexis,Obituary by Felix Klein(in German) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lexis, Wilhelm 1837 births 1914 deaths People from ...
(1837–1914), and
Luigi Bodio Luigi Bodio (born 12 October 1840 in Milan–2 November 1920 in Rome) was an Italian economist and statistician, among the founders of Italian Statistics. He was the first General Secretary of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and ...
(1840–1920) contributed to the development of demography and to the toolkit of methods and techniques of demographic analysis.


Methods

Demography is the statistical and mathematical study of the size, composition, and spatial distribution of human populations and how these features change over time. Data are obtained from a census of the population and from registries: records of events like birth, deaths, migrations, marriages,
divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving th ...
s, diseases, and employment. To do this, there needs to be an understanding of how they are calculated and the questions they answer which are included in these four concepts: population change,
standardization Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardizatio ...
of population numbers, the demographic bookkeeping equation, and population composition. There are two types of data collection—direct and indirect—with several methods of each type.


Direct methods

Direct data comes from vital statistics registries that track all births and deaths as well as certain changes in legal status such as marriage, divorce, and migration (registration of place of residence). In developed countries with good registration systems (such as the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
and much of
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
), registry statistics are the best method for estimating the number of births and deaths. A
census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...
is the other common direct method of collecting demographic data. A census is usually conducted by a national government and attempts to enumerate every person in a country. In contrast to vital statistics data, which are typically collected continuously and summarized on an annual basis, censuses typically occur only every 10 years or so, and thus are not usually the best source of data on births and deaths. Analyses are conducted after a census to estimate how much over or undercounting took place. These compare the sex ratios from the census data to those estimated from natural values and mortality data. Censuses do more than just count people. They typically collect information about families or households in addition to individual characteristics such as age, sex, marital status, literacy/education, employment status, and occupation, and geographical location. They may also collect data on migration (or place of birth or of previous residence), language, religion, nationality (or ethnicity or race), and citizenship. In countries in which the vital registration system may be incomplete, the censuses are also used as a direct source of information about fertility and mortality; for example, the censuses of the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
gather information on births and deaths that occurred in the 18 months immediately preceding the census.


Indirect methods

Indirect methods of collecting data are required in countries and periods where full data are not available, such as is the case in much of the developing world, and most of historical demography. One of these techniques in contemporary demography is the sister method, where survey researchers ask women how many of their sisters have died or had children and at what age. With these surveys, researchers can then indirectly estimate birth or death rates for the entire population. Other indirect methods in contemporary demography include asking people about siblings, parents, and children. Other indirect methods are necessary in historical demography. There are a variety of demographic methods for modelling population processes. They include models of mortality (including the
life table In actuarial science and demography, a life table (also called a mortality table or actuarial table) is a table which shows, for each age, what the probability is that a person of that age will die before their next birthday ("probability of de ...
, Gompertz models, hazards models, Cox proportional hazards models, multiple decrement life tables, Brass relational logits),
fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Ferti ...
(Hermes model,
Coale Coale is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Ansley J. Coale (1917–2002), American demographer *Danny Coale (born 1988), American football player * Griffith Baily Coale (1890–1950), American painter *Robert Dorsey Coale (1857- ...
-Trussell models, parity progression ratios), marriage (Singulate Mean at Marriage, Page model), disability ( Sullivan's method, multistate life tables),
population projections Population projection, in the field of demography, is an estimate of a future population. In contrast with intercensal estimates and censuses, which usually involve some sort of field data gathering, projections usually involve mathematical mode ...
( Lee-Carter model, the
Leslie Matrix The Leslie matrix is a discrete, age-structured model of population growth that is very popular in population ecology named after Patrick H. Leslie. The Leslie matrix (also called the Leslie model) is one of the most well-known ways to describe ...
), and
population momentum Population momentum is a consequence of the demographic transition. Population momentum explains why a population will continue to grow even if the fertility rate declines. Population momentum occurs because it is not only the number of children ...
( Keyfitz). The United Kingdom has a series of four national birth cohort studies, the first three spaced apart by 12 years: the 1946 National Survey of Health and Development, the 1958
National Child Development Study The National Child Development Study (NCDS) is a continuing, multi-disciplinary longitudinal study which follows the lives of 17,415 people born in England, Scotland and Wales from 17,205 women during the week of 3–9 March 1958. The results from ...
, the 1970 British Cohort Study, and the Millennium Cohort Study, begun much more recently in 2000. These have followed the lives of samples of people (typically beginning with around 17,000 in each study) for many years, and are still continuing. As the samples have been drawn in a nationally representative way, inferences can be drawn from these studies about the differences between four distinct generations of British people in terms of their health, education, attitudes, childbearing and employment patterns. Indirect standardization is used when a population is small enough that the number of events (births, deaths, etc.) are also small. In this case, methods must be used to produce a standardized mortality rate (SMR) or standardized incidence rate (SIR).


Population change

Population change is analyzed by measuring the change between one population size to another.
Global population In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for ...
continues to rise, which makes population change an essential component to demographics. This is calculated by taking one population size minus the population size in an earlier
census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...
. The best way of measuring population change is using the intercensal percentage change. The intercensal percentage change is the absolute change in population between the censuses divided by the population size in the earlier census. Next, multiply this a hundredfold to receive a percentage. When this statistic is achieved, the population growth between two or more
nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by th ...
s that differ in size, can be accurately measured and examined.


Standardization of population numbers

For there to be a significant comparison, numbers must be altered for the size of the population that is under study. For example, the
fertility rate The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if: # she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime # she were ...
is calculated as the ratio of the number of births to women of childbearing age to the total number of women in this age range. If these adjustments were not made, we would not know if a nation with a higher rate of births or deaths has a population with more women of
childbearing age Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but can ...
or more births per eligible woman. Within the category of
standardization Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardizatio ...
, there are two major approaches: direct standardization and indirect standardization.


Common rates and ratios

* The crude birth rate, the annual number of live births per 1,000 people. * The general
fertility rate The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if: # she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime # she were ...
, the annual number of live births per 1,000 women of childbearing age (often taken to be from 15 to 49 years old, but sometimes from 15 to 44). * The age-specific fertility rates, the annual number of live births per 1,000 women in particular age groups (usually age 15–19, 20–24 etc.) * The crude death rate, the annual number of deaths per 1,000 people. * The infant mortality rate, the annual number of deaths of children less than 1 year old per 1,000 live births. * The expectation of life (or life expectancy), the number of years that an individual at a given age could expect to live at present mortality levels. * The total fertility rate, the number of live births per woman completing her reproductive life, if her childbearing at each age reflected current age-specific fertility rates. * The replacement level fertility, the average number of children women must have in order to replace the population for the next generation. For example, the replacement level fertility in the US is 2.11.Introduction to environmental engineering and science by Masters and Ela, 2008, Pearson Education, chapter 3 * The
gross reproduction rate The gross reproduction rate (GRR) is the average number of daughters a woman would have if she survived all of her childbearing years, which is roughly to the age of 45, subject to the age-specific fertility rate and sex ratio at birth throughout t ...
, the number of daughters who would be born to a woman completing her reproductive life at current age-specific fertility rates. * The net reproduction ratio is the expected number of daughters, per newborn prospective mother, who may or may not survive to and through the ages of childbearing. * A stable population, one that has had constant crude birth and death rates for such a long period of time that the percentage of people in every age class remains constant, or equivalently, the population pyramid has an unchanging structure. * A stationary population, one that is both stable and unchanging in size (the difference between crude birth rate and crude death rate is zero). A stable population does not necessarily remain fixed in size. It can be expanding or shrinking. Note that the crude death rate as defined above and applied to a whole population can give a misleading impression. For example, the number of deaths per 1,000 people can be higher in developed nations than in less-developed countries, despite standards of health being better in developed countries. This is because developed countries have proportionally more older people, who are more likely to die in a given year, so that the overall mortality rate can be higher even if the mortality rate at any given age is lower. A more complete picture of mortality is given by a
life table In actuarial science and demography, a life table (also called a mortality table or actuarial table) is a table which shows, for each age, what the probability is that a person of that age will die before their next birthday ("probability of de ...
, which summarizes mortality separately at each age. A life table is necessary to give a good estimate of life expectancy.


Basic equation regarding development of a population

Suppose that a country (or other entity) contains ''Populationt'' persons at time ''t''. What is the size of the population at time ''t'' + 1 ? :\text_ = \text_t + \text_t + \text_t Natural increase from time ''t'' to ''t'' + 1: :\text_t = \text_t - \text_t Net migration from time ''t'' to ''t'' + 1: :\text_t = \text_t - \text_t These basic equations can also be applied to subpopulations. For example, the population size of ethnic groups or nationalities within a given society or country is subject to the same sources of change. When dealing with ethnic groups, however, "net migration" might have to be subdivided into physical migration and ethnic reidentification (
assimilation Assimilation may refer to: Culture * Cultural assimilation, the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs ** Language shift, also known as language assimilation, the prog ...
). Individuals who change their ethnic self-labels or whose ethnic classification in government statistics changes over time may be thought of as migrating or moving from one population subcategory to another. More generally, while the basic demographic equation holds true by definition, in practice the recording and counting of events (births, deaths, immigration, emigration) and the enumeration of the total population size are subject to error. So allowance needs to be made for error in the underlying statistics when any accounting of population size or change is made. The figure in this section shows the latest (2004) UN (
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
) WHO projections of world population out to the year 2150 (red = high, orange = medium, green = low). The UN "medium" projection shows world population reaching an approximate equilibrium at 9 billion by 2075. Working independently, demographers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
expect world population to peak at 9 billion by 2070. Throughout the 21st century, the average age of the population is likely to continue to rise.


Science of population

Populations can change through three processes: fertility, mortality, and migration. Fertility involves the number of children that women have and is to be contrasted with fecundity (a woman's childbearing potential). Mortality is the study of the causes, consequences, and measurement of processes affecting death to members of the population. Demographers most commonly study mortality using the
life table In actuarial science and demography, a life table (also called a mortality table or actuarial table) is a table which shows, for each age, what the probability is that a person of that age will die before their next birthday ("probability of de ...
, a statistical device that provides information about the mortality conditions (most notably the life expectancy) in the population. Migration refers to the movement of persons from a locality of origin to a destination place across some predefined, political boundary. Migration researchers do not designate movements 'migrations' unless they are somewhat permanent. Thus, demographers do not consider tourists and travellers to be migrating. While demographers who study migration typically do so through census data on place of residence, indirect sources of data including tax forms and labour force surveys are also important. Demography is today widely taught in many universities across the world, attracting students with initial training in social sciences, statistics or health studies. Being at the crossroads of several disciplines such as sociology,
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
,
epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evi ...
, geography, anthropology and history, demography offers tools to approach a large range of population issues by combining a more technical quantitative approach that represents the core of the discipline with many other methods borrowed from social or other sciences. Demographic research is conducted in universities, in research institutes, as well as in statistical departments and in several international agencies. Population institutions are part of the CICRED (International Committee for Coordination of Demographic Research) network while most individual scientists engaged in demographic research are members of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, or a national association such as the Population Association of America in the United States, or affiliates of the Federation of Canadian Demographers in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
.Fédération canadienne de démographie – Federation of Canadian Demographers
/ref>


Population composition

Population composition is the description of population defined by characteristics such as age, race, sex or marital status. These descriptions can be necessary for understanding the social dynamics from historical and comparative research. This data is often compared using a population pyramid. Population composition is also a very important part of historical research. Information ranging back hundreds of years is not always worthwhile, because the numbers of people for which data are available may not provide the information that is important (such as population size). Lack of information on the original data-collection procedures may prevent accurate evaluation of data quality.


Demographic analysis in institutions and organizations


Labor market

The demographic analysis of labor markets can be used to show slow population growth, population aging, and the increased importance of immigration. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that in the next 100 years, the United States will face some dramatic demographic changes. The population is expected to grow more slowly and age more rapidly than ever before and the nation will become a nation of immigrants. This influx is projected to rise over the next century as new immigrants and their children will account for over half the U.S. population. These demographic shifts could ignite major adjustments in the economy, more specifically, in labor markets.


Turnover and in internal labor markets

People decide to exit organizations for many reasons, such as, better jobs, dissatisfaction, and concerns within the family. The causes of turnover can be split into two separate factors, one linked with the culture of the organization, and the other relating to all other factors. People who do not fully accept a culture might leave voluntarily. Or, some individuals might leave because they fail to fit in and fail to change within a particular organization.


Population ecology of organizations

A basic definition of population ecology is a study of the distribution and abundance of organisms. As it relates to organizations and demography, organizations go through various liabilities to their continued survival. Hospitals, like all other large and complex organizations are impacted in the environment they work. For example, a study was done on the closure of acute care hospitals in Florida between a particular time. The study examined effect size, age, and niche density of these particular hospitals. A population theory says that organizational outcomes are mostly determined by environmental factors. Among several factors of the theory, there are four that apply to the hospital closure example: size, age, density of niches in which organizations operate, and density of niches in which organizations are established.


Business organizations

Problems in which demographers may be called upon to assist business organizations are when determining the best prospective location in an area of a branch store or service outlet, predicting the demand for a new product, and to analyze certain dynamics of a company's workforce. Choosing a new location for a branch of a bank, choosing the area in which to start a new supermarket, consulting a bank loan officer that a particular location would be a beneficial site to start a car wash, and determining what shopping area would be best to buy and be redeveloped in metropolis area are types of problems in which demographers can be called upon. Standardization is a useful demographic technique used in the analysis of a business. It can be used as an interpretive and analytic tool for the comparison of different markets.


Nonprofit organizations

These organizations have interests about the number and characteristics of their clients so they can maximize the sale of their products, their outlook on their influence, or the ends of their power, services, and beneficial works.


See also

* Biodemography * Biodemography of human longevity * Demographics of the world * Demographic economics * Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality *
Linguistic demography Linguistic demography is the statistical study of languages among all populations. Estimating the number of speakers of a given language is not straightforward, and various estimates may diverge considerably. This is first of all due to the questi ...
*
List of demographics articles This is a list of demographics articles. "Demographics articles" refers to the figures related to the population of a specific country, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious aff ...
* Medieval demography *
National Security Study Memorandum 200 National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200), also known as the "Kissinger Report", was a national security directive completed on December 10, 1974 by the ...
of 1974 *
NRS social grade The NRS social grades are a system of demographic classification used in the United Kingdom. They were originally developed by the National Readership Survey (NRS) to classify readers, but are now used by many other organisations for wider app ...
* Political demography *
Population biology The term population biology has been used with different meanings. In 1971 Edward O. Wilson ''et al''. used the term in the sense of applying mathematical models to population genetics, community ecology, and population dynamics. Alan Hastings u ...
* Population dynamics * Population geography *
Population reconstruction Population reconstruction is a method used by historical demographers. Using records such as church registries the size and composition of families living in a given region in a given past time is determined. This allows the identification and an ...
* Population statistics * Religious demography *
Replacement migration In demography, replacement migration is a theory of migration needed for a region to achieve a particular objective (demographic, economic or social). Generally, studies using this concept have as an objective to avoid the decline of total populatio ...
* Reproductive health


Social surveys

* Current Population Survey (CPS) *
Demographic and Health Surveys The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program is responsible for collecting and disseminating accurate, nationally representative data on health and population in developing countries. The project is implemented by ICF International and is funded ...
(DHS) * European Social Survey (ESS) * General Social Survey (GSS) * German General Social Survey ( ALLBUS) *
Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys The Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) are household surveys implemented by countries under the programme developed by the United Nations Children's Fund to provide internationally comparable, statistically rigorous data on the situation o ...
(MICS) * National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) *
Panel Study of Income Dynamics The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a longitudinal panel survey of American families, conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. The PSID measures economic, social, and health factors over the life course of f ...
(PSID) * Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020) *
Socio-Economic Panel The ''German'' Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP [], for ''Sozio-oekonomisches Panel'') is a Longitudinal study, longitudinal panel dataset of the population in Germany. It is a household based study which started in 1984 and which reinterviews adul ...
(SOEP, German) * World Values Survey (WVS)


Organizations

* Global Social Change Research Project (United States) *
Institut national d'études démographiques The French Institute for Demographic Studies (French: ''Institut national d'études démographiques'', INED) is a French research institute specializing in demography and population studies in general. History Before 1945 In 1941, Nobel Prize w ...
(INED) (France) * Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Germany) *
Office of Population Research The Office of Population Research (OPR) at Princeton University is the oldest population research center in the United States. Founded in 1936, the OPR is a leading demographic research and training center. Recent research activity has primarily f ...
(Princeton University) (United States) * Population Council (United States) *
Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan The Michigan Population Studies Center is a demography center in the United States, with an extensive record in both domestic and international population research and training. History and research focus The University of Michigan's Popula ...
(United States) * Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) (Austria) * Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (Austria)


Scientific journals

* '' Brazilian Journal of Population Studies'' * ''
Cahiers québécois de démographie The ''Cahiers québécois de démographie'' (English: ''Quebec Notebooks of Demography'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal publishing original research in areas of demography, demographic analysis, and the demographics of Quebec and other popul ...
'' * '' Demography'' * '' Population and Development Review''


References


Further reading

* Josef Ehmer, Jens Ehrhardt, Martin Kohli (Eds.)
''Fertility in the History of the 20th Century: Trends, Theories, Policies, Discourses''
Historical Social Research 36 (2), 2011. * Glad, John. 2008.
Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century
'. Hermitage Publishers, * Gavrilova N.S., Gavrilov L.A. 2011. Ageing and Longevity: Mortality Laws and Mortality Forecasts for Ageing Populations n Czech: Stárnutí a dlouhověkost: Zákony a prognózy úmrtnosti pro stárnoucí populace Demografie, 53(2): 109–128. * Preston, Samuel, Patrick Heuveline, and Michel Guillot. 2000. ''Demography: Measuring and Modeling Population Processes''. Blackwell Publishing. * Gavrilov L.A., Gavrilova N.S. 2010. Demographic Consequences of Defeating Aging. Rejuvenation Research, 13(2-3): 329–334. * Paul R. Ehrlich (1968), '' The Population Bomb'' Controversial Neo-Malthusianist pamphlet * Leonid A. Gavrilov & Natalia S. Gavrilova (1991), ''The Biology of Life Span: A Quantitative Approach''. New York: Harwood Academic Publisher, * Andrey Korotayev &
Daria Khaltourina Daria Andreyevna Khaltourina (russian: Дáрья Андрéевна Халтýрина; born 4 January 1979 in Chelyabinsk) is a Russian sociologist, anthropologist, demographer, and a public figure. She is the head of the Group of the Monitorin ...
(2006)
''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth''. Moscow: URSS


* Uhlenberg P. (Editor), (2009) International Handbook of the Demography of Aging, New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 113–131. * Paul Demeny and Geoffrey McNicoll (Eds.). 2003. The Encyclopedia of Population. New York, Macmillan Reference USA, vol.1, 32-37 * Phillip Longman (2004), ''The Empty Cradle: how falling birth rates threaten global prosperity and what to do about it'' * Sven Kunisch, Stephan A. Boehm, Michael Boppel (eds) (2011). ''From Grey to Silver: Managing the Demographic Change Successfully'', Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, *
Joe McFalls Joe or JOE may refer to: Arts Film and television * ''Joe'' (1970 film), starring Peter Boyle * ''Joe'' (2013 film), starring Nicolas Cage * ''Joe'' (TV series), a British TV series airing from 1966 to 1971 * ''Joe'', a 2002 Canadian animated ...
(2007), ''Population: A Lively Introduction,'' Population Reference Bureaubr>
*
Ben J. Wattenberg Benjamin Joseph Wattenberg (born Joseph Ben Zion Wattenberg;Roberts, Sam New York ''Times'', June 29, 2015. Retrieved 2015-06-29. August 26, 1933 – June 28, 2015) was an American author, neoconservative political commentator and demographer, ...
(2004), ''How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future''. Chicago: R. Dee, * Perry, Marc J. & Mackun, Paul J. ''Population Change & Distribution: Census 2000 Brief''. (2001) *Preston, Samuel; Heuveline,Patrick; and Guillot Michel. 2000. ''Demography: Measuring and Modeling Population Processes''. Blackwell Publishing. * Schutt, Russell K. 2006. "Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research". SAGE Publications. * Siegal, Jacob S. (2002), ''Applied Demography: Applications to Business, Government, Law, and Public Policy''. San Diego: Academic Press. * Wattenberg, Ben J. (2004), ''How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future''. Chicago: R. Dee,


External links


Quick demography data lookup
*
Historicalstatistics.org
Links to historical demographic and economic statistics
United Nations Population Division: Homepage
*

Population estimates and projections for 230 countries and areas *

Estimates and projections of urban and rural populations and urban agglomerations *

Probabilistic Population Projections, based on the 2010 Revision of the World Population Prospects.



* ttp://gsociology.icaap.org/report/demsum.html Brief review of world basic demographic trends
Family and Fertility Surveys
(FFS) {{Authority control Actuarial science Environmental social science Interdisciplinary subfields of sociology Human geography Market segmentation Human populations