Demography

Demography

Demography is the science of populations. Demographers seek to understand population dynamics by investigating three main demographic processes: birth, migration, and aging (including death). All three of these processes contribute to changes in populations, including how people inhabit the earth, form nations and societies, and develop culture. While most of the discipline’s research focuses on humans, the MPIDR is also committed to the specialized field of biodemography.

Today, there is growing interest among the public in demography, as “demographic change” has become the subject of political debates in many developed countries. Most of these countries have birth rates below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, and, at the same time, life expectancy has been rising considerably and continues to rise – a development sometimes called “the aging of societies.”
While demography cannot offer political advice on how to tackle demographic change, demographers seek to describe the phenomena related to this change, and to understand their causes. Using reliable data and the statistical processing of these data, modern demographic research embraces many scientific disciplines, including mathematics, economics and other social sciences, geography or biology.

Demography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Demography involves the statistical study of human populations. As a very general science, it can analyze any kind of dynamic living population, i.e., one that changes over time or space (see population dynamics). It encompasses the study of the size, structure, and distribution of these populations, and spatial and/or temporal changes in them in response to time, birth, migration, aging, and death.

Demo- from Ancient Greek δῆμος dēmos, means "the people" and -graphy from γράφω graphō, implies writing, description or measurement.[1] Demographics are quantifiable characteristics of a given population.

Demographic analysis can cover whole societies, or groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion and ethnicity. Educational institutions usually treat demography as a field of sociology, though there are a number of independent demography departments.[2]

Formal demography limits its object of study to the measurement of population processes, while the broader field of social demography or population studies also analyzes the relationships between economic, social, cultural and biological processes influencing a population.[3]

Demographic Research (Online Journal)

"Demographic Research" is a free, online, open access, peer-reviewed journal of the population sciences published by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR). Contributions are generally published within one month of final acceptance.

The online journal is available at: http://www.demographic-research.org.
"Demographic Research" has been established by the MPIDR as one of the first free, open access online journals worldwide. By pioneering in the field of online publishing the MPIDR aims to:

• publish top-quality demographic research and related material from the full range of disciplines that bear on demography, including the social sciences, the life sciences, mathematics and statistics, policy research, and research on the discipline itself;

• harness the potential of the Internet. Articles may include data files, computer programs, and other supporting material, as well as hypertext links to other Internet resources; and

• encourage the development of an international community of people concerned with demographic research, including researchers, teachers, students, data producers; and users of demographic knowledge in government, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector.
  
  The Publisher of "Demographic Research" is James W. Vaupel, Director of the MPIDR, and head of the Laboratories Evolutionary Biodemography and Survival and Longevity.
  The Editor is Carl P. Schmertmann, who is supported by a board of associate editors.