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(see Reproduction). Other early surveys collected an avowedly applied intent. Demography bears on the
women-based fertility histories to supplement the efforts of international agencies and national govern-
event-based data generated by birth registration. Fer- ments to promote family planning and improve health
tility history and family planning data remain the in the developing world. In the developed world, pop-
focus of many demographic surveys, including the ulation growth has slowed but low fertility and the
two major international programs of surveys con- reduction in death rates in old age are producing an
ducted since the 1970s, namely the World Fertility increasingly aged population. Recent changes in pat-
Survey and the Demographic and Health Surveys. terns of marriage and divorce and of childbearing
inside and outside marriage also have major implica-
tions for the family and public policy.
Issues Demographic studies of mortality tend to focus on
the analysis of routine data. Demographers’ research
Between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth cen- into health and mortality cannot be distinguished
turies the more developed regions of the world clearly from that of epidemiologists. However, de-
went through a demographic transition from a high- mographers tend to be concerned with the distribution
fertility, high-mortality, and low-growth demographic of disease and premature death (see Descriptive Epi-
regime to a low-fertility, low-mortality, and low- demiology) across social groups (see Social Classi-
growth demographic regime. As mortality tended fications) and their implications for other aspects of
to fall before fertility, this transition was marked social life, rather than with measuring risk factors for
by rapid population growth. Since 1945, a similar specific conditions.
transition has begun in most less developed countries.
As a result, the world’s population has grown from
Demographic Analysis
about 2.5 billion to about 6 billion in the second half
of the twentieth century. It is expected to grow to The aim of formal demographic analysis is to isolate
between 9 and 16 billion by 2100. the components of demographic patterns by dividing
Efforts to understand the determinants of the tran- a population into relatively homogeneous subgroups.
sition of fertility and mortality to low levels are Analysis by age and sex has primacy over analy-
a central concern of demography. Many demogra- sis by other compositional factors. Human biology
phers now believe that explanations that focus on causes the propensity to die and to give birth to be
economic factors and the provision of health and fam- differentiated by age and sex everywhere. It imposes
ily planning programs are inadequate and need to be a degree of uniformity on age patterns of mortality
supplemented by accounts that take into account the and fertility in all human populations.
ideational and cultural determinants of demographic Classical demographic analysis is based on a fairly
behavior. small set of measures and techniques. Most of these
Thomas Malthus was the first author to develop are also used in cognate disciplines. Calculation of
a systematic argument that high fertility leading to rates, ratios, and proportions represent the basic way
population growth could have adverse effects on for controlling for population size. In demography,
economic welfare [7]. He argued that a growing pop- rates calculated for the whole population that make
ulation must eventually outstrip its subsistence base, no allowance for the influence of population structure
bringing about rising mortality from famine, pesti- on the phenomenon of interest are referred to as crude
lence, and war. Although the past two centuries of rates. Examples are the crude birth rate and crude
human history have followed a very different path death rate (see Vital Statistics, Overview).
from that envisaged by Malthus, concern still exists Calculation of age-specific rates and rates specific
about the impact of population growth on economic to other subgroups of the population allow the ana-
development and the environment. Today, however, lyst to isolate the propensity to experience the event
economic demographers tend to be more sanguine being studied from the influence of population struc-
about the consequences of population growth than ture. A range of methods of standardization are used
those with a background in ecology [3]. to produce synthetic indices that summarize such spe-
Many demographic outcomes are of concern to cific rates (see Standardization Methods). The dis-
policy makers and much demographic research has tinction between cohort analysis and cross-sectional
Demography 3
or period analysis is fundamental to demography. sexual intercourse, her probability of conceiving, and
Demographers use the term cohort to refer to groups the probability that a pregnancy ends in a live birth.
of individuals who experience a defining event at the The strength of the approach is that only a few of the
same time. Examples include birth cohorts and mar- proximate determinants of individuals’ fertility differ
riage cohorts. Cohort analysis studies the subsequent between populations in their impact at the aggregate
experience of such groups. This contrasts with epi- level. Thus, the four main proximate determinants
demiologic usage, which refers to all those eligible of fertility differences between groups and over time
for recruitment into a longitudinal study as a cohort. are the proportion of women in sexual unions, post-
Period measures are often treated as referring to partum infecundity associated with breast-feeding,
a synthetic or hypothetical cohort, so that summary contraception, and abortion. Socioeconomic deter-
indices can be calculated that indicate what would minants of fertility must operate through these few
happen to a cohort that went through life experienc- proximate factors and a single characteristic may
ing the specific rates of the period under study. For have countervailing effects on fertility via different
example, the most widely used index of period fertil- proximate determinants.
ity is the total fertility rate. This measures how many
children women would bear on average if they went
through life with the fertility of a specific period. It is
Demographic Models
calculated by summing the age-specific fertility rates Analysis of data on actual populations is paral-
of a particular year, usually for five-year age groups, leled by mathematical models of the interrelationship
over all ages at which women bear children. The total between population size and structure and the com-
fertility rate is thus a form of directly standardized ponents of demographic change. Stable population
rate, calculated using a uniform age distribution as theory as developed by Lotka in the 1920s and 1930s
the standard. demonstrates that any closed single-sex population
Two basic aspects of any demographic process are subject to constant fertility and mortality rates con-
its intensity, or quantum, and its timing, or tempo. verges on an unchanging age structure and a constant
The intensity of a nonrenewable event such as death rate of growth. This stable outcome is independent
or first marriage can be measured by the proportion of of the initial age structure of the population. The
a cohort who eventually experience the event. Both special case of a stable population that is unchang-
the expected timing of any nonrenewable process and ing in size is termed a stationary population. Its
the distribution of times of its occurrence can be age structure is a function of the life table. Recent
studied using life table methods. The intensity of a developments, known as generalized stable popu-
renewable process such as birth or disease incidence lation theory, demonstrate that the mathematics of
can be measured by the mean number of events per stable populations can be extended to populations in
person, and their tempo by the characteristics of the which growth rates vary by age because of a history
distribution of the events in time. Renewable events of fertility and mortality change and to populations
can be categorized by the order of their occurrence, subject to decrements other than mortality [8].
and events of a particular order can be analyzed as One crucial application of demography is to the
a nonrenewable process. For example, the proportion forecasting of future population change. This is usu-
of women who have had a birth of order i that go on ally undertaken using cohort-component methods of
to bear a child of order i + 1 is known as a parity population projection [2]. These methods provide a
progression ratio. precise way of controlling for the influence of popu-
Investigation of the determinants of fertility and lation structure and of working out the implications of
mortality has been facilitated by making a distinc- any scenario postulated for future vital rates. Despite
tion between proximate and distal determinants. The this, population forecasts have often proved wide of
approach is most developed with respect to fertility. A the mark. Fertility, mortality, and migration remain
proximate determinant is one that has a direct impact difficult to predict. Forecasts informed by a theo-
on the outcome of interest while a distal determinant retical understanding of the determinants of these
can only affect the outcome via a proximate deter- components of population change often perform little
minant. The proximate determinants of fertility are better than the simple extrapolation of past trends in
those factors that determine a woman’s exposure to vital rates.
4 Demography