Is the study of the size composition change and distribution of human populations?

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Subdisciplines
In Practice
In Disaster Research
Is the study of the size composition distribution and change in a human population?
What is the study of human population called?
What is the study of demography?
What is population and demography?

A population’s composition may be described in terms of basic demographic features – age, sex, family and household status – and by features of the population’s social and economic context – language, education, occupation, ethnicity, religion, income and wealth. The distribution of populations can be defined at multiple levels (local, regional, national, global) and with different types of boundaries (political, economic, geographic). Demography is a central component of societal contexts and social change.

What demographers do goes well beyond this broad definition and draws extensively from related disciplines – Sociology, Economics, statistics, History, Political Science, Anthropology, Psychology, Public Health and Environmental Sciences.

Research at the Stockholm University Demography Unit is based on unique Swedish population data, allowing us to draw conclusions from our studies with high accuracy. Sweden, along with other Nordic countries, is also known to be a forerunner in emerging family forms and behaviours like divorce, childbearing and family reconstitution. Studies on Swedish population data is therefore relevant for policy makers in many countries.

Demography (included in the subject sociology) at Stockholm University is continuously ranked as top 50 in the world according to both the QS World University Rankings by subject, read more here, and the Shanghai ranking (Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, ARWU), read more here.

Definition

Demography is the scientific study of human populations (McDonald, 2014). Demographers study the size, structure, and distribution of human populations. Demographers often use a variety of statistical methods to analyze changes in various subcomponents of human populations, such as births, deaths, or changes in legal status (for example, marriage, divorce, and migration).

Subdisciplines

Numerous subdisciplines of demography focus on the relationships between the economic, social, cultural, and biological processes influencing a population (Harper, 2018). These subdisciplines include anthropological, economic, family, historical, mathematical, paleo, spatial, and social demography, as well as bio-demography and population studies.

In Practice

Demographers often make a distinction between basic and applied demography, with the former focused on explaining trends in a population and the latter focused on predicting change (Swanson, Burch, & Tedrow, 1996). Demographers engage in a variety of tasks associated with understanding how population changes over time will affect a wide variety of outcomes. For example, demographers study census data to determine how increases in elderly populations will affect government capacity to fund social security and other programs. Employment opportunities in demography are not limited to government sectors; nonprofit and for-profit organizations hire demographers to understand how population changes will affect their programs, sales, marketing efforts, and other activities.

In Disaster Research

Demography has many applications for hazards and disaster research. Demographers may estimate the number of people impacted by a particular disaster or the extent of vulnerability to disasters within a particular population (Donner & Rodríguez, 2008). Demographers often analyze the impacts that disasters will have on the populations in disaster-prone areas (Schultz & Elliott, 2012).

References

Demography. (2018). In Wikipedia. Retrieved August 20, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography

Donner, W., & Rodríguez, H. (2008). Population Composition, Migration and Inequality: The Influence of Demographic Changes on Disaster Risk and Vulnerability. Social Forces 87(2), 1089-1114. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sof.0.0141

Harper, S. (2018.) Demography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McDonald, P. (2014). Demography: The Scientific Study of Population. International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. Retrieved August 20, 2018, from https://iussp.org/en/what-demography-peter-mcdonald

Schultz, J. & Elliott, J. R. (2012). Natural Disasters and Local Demographic Change in the United States. Population and Environment 34(3), 293-312. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11111-012-0171-7

Swanson, D. A., Burch, T. K., & Tedrow, L. M. (1996). What Is Applied Demography? Population Research and Policy Review, 15(5-6), 403-418.

Is the study of the size composition distribution and change in a human population?

Demography is the study of human populations – their size, composition and distribution across space – and the process through which populations change. Births, deaths and migration are the 'big three' of demography, jointly producing population stability or change.

What is the study of human population called?

The scientific study of human population is called demography.

What is the study of demography?

Demography is the study of population growth, mobility, fertility, and mortality.

What is population and demography?

The field of science interested in collecting and analyzing these numbers is termed population demographics, also known as demography. Broadly defined, demography is the study of the characteristics of populations. It provides a mathematical description of how those characteristics change over time.