2019 SOCI 2004 Lecture 1

WHAT IS DEMOGRAPHY? DEMOGRAPHY? 

Demography is the scientific study of human population, including the size, distribution, composition, and the factors that determine changes in its size, distribution and composition.

Demography 

  

Demography focuses on five aspects of human population: 1.Size 2.Distribution 3.Composition ascribed ◦ ◦

 

achieved 4.Population dynamics/ dynamics/change change 5. Determinants and consequences of population change.

Why Study Demography? 

 



The total of billions of individual decisions made by each of us becomes the substance of demographic reality. we are all born and we all die. In between, most of us will have children of our own, and almost everybody migrates from one place to another at least once. In addition, the chances that you will marry and maybe divorce, have children, of job will land, the housing you find, the the kind choices youyou will have for a mid-life career change, and the kind of social support you expect in old age are all (dependent Weeks: 2012).

on population forces

Some Questions Demographers Seek to Answer 

Consider the following questions: What is the proportion of your people, elders, infants, and working age population that will be alive in the next 30 years? o

o

How long you live? aWhat the chances ofwill dying within year, are or within 10 years? What is likely to kill you? o

What is your probability of getting married or divorced?

The Relationship between Demography and

Other Disciplines 

Demography and Sociology



Demography and Economics



Demography and Geography







Demography and Epidemiology Demography and Biology