DEMOGRAPHY
DEMOGRAPHY
What: the scientific study of human population, including its size, distribution, composition,
and the factors that determine changes in its size, distribution, and composition
→ it’s about people and the population (size, structure, how they change over time)
→ focused on content (population change, developments), examples are important
→ focuses on 5 main aspects: size, distribution, composition, population dynamics (births,
deaths, migration), socioeconomic determinants and consequences of change
Components:
● Size: the number of persons in a given area at a given time
● Distribution: how populations are dispersed geographically (concentranted or spread
out)
● Composition: number of persons in age, sex, race, etc
○ Ascribed characteristics: fixed, don’t change over time (age, sex, race, year and
place of birth)
○ Achieved characteristics: changeable, can develop or shift through life
experiences or social change (income, education, nativity, ethnicity, ancestry,
religion, citizenship, marital)
Demographic transition: a decrease of death rates followed by a period of a strong decrease
in birth rates, resulting
- Increase life expectancy
- Increase in population numbers
The 4 stages of demographic transition
- High birth rate & high but fluctuating death rate
- Declining death rate & continuing high birth rate
- Declining birth & death rates
- Low death rate & low but fluctuating birth rate
→ birth rate needs to be high because we need to be sure that there’s enough children to take
care of elderly
Population study: a study of the numbers and kinds of people in an area and their changes
- Seeking explanations for the patterns of variation in a population and causes of changes
(e.g., why do we see more elderly people live in NL than in Spain), why the population
looks like this and why it’s diverse between European countries
- Projecting future changes and future consequences → do we need to act
Sources of data for demography
● Historical sources: genealogies (ancestors), cemetery data, church records, military
records, police records, censuses
● Population registers (modern way)
DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES
Core drivers of demography changes
1. Fertility (birth rate): how many children are being born, determines how fast a population
grows
- Based on vital registration (official records of births)
→ Determinants
- Biological factors: age, health, infertility
- social/cultural norms: religion, gender roles
- Economic factors: income, job security, childcare costs, housing
- Education: female education tends to lower fertility
, - Policies: pro-natalist (incentives to have more children) vs anti-natalist (family
planning, one-child policies)
- Access to contraception and reproductive healthcare
→ Trends
- Post-WWII baby boom (1950s): spike in fertility
- Second demographic transition: fertility decline due to contraception, women’s
education, urbanisation, changing values
- COVID-19 effects: babyboom in NL and DE but not in FR, IT, ESP due to income
uncertain, decrease in migrants, less fertility treatments
2. Mortality (death rate): the frequency of death in a population
- Based on registration of death
→ Determinants
- Health & medicine, Nutrition, Sanitation & hygiene, Living/working conditions, Lifestyle
factors, Wars, pandemics, disasters
- Epidemiological transition: improved healthcare, sanitation, reduced infectious disease,
interventions (antibiotics and vaccines)
→ Trends: epidemiological transition
- Pre-modern: infectious diseases and famine
- 19th-20th century: decline in infectious (sanitation, medicine)
- 20th century: chronic diseases (CVD, cancer)
- Today: ageing populations, double burden (infectious + chronic diseases)
→ Results: life expectancy has risen dramatically worldwide (but unevenly)
3. Migration (mobility): people moving in (immigration) or out (emigration), can increase or
decrease population size
- Using censuses or through indirect determination (using the residual difference between
actual population growth and what births-deaths can explain)
→ Determinants
- Economic factors: jobs, wages, labor demand
- Social factors: family reunification, education, networks
- Political factors: conflict
- Environmental factors: climate chage, disasters, resource scarcity
- Driven by globalisation inequality, conflict, labor demand, and demographic imbalances
between regions
→ Trends
- Globalisation has increased mobility
- Aging countries rely on migration to balance declining fertility and support the
workforce
- COVID-19 temporarily reduced migration due to border closures
Types of demographic measures
- Population characteristics → measures of structure: age, sex, race/ethnicity, education,
income/SES, marital status, employment status, location/geography
- Population dynamics → measures of change: fertility rate, mortality rate, migration
rate, marriage/divorce rate, natural increase (the difference between the birth rate and
the death rate)
Impacts of demographic changes
General impact:
- Alters population size, age structure, and social composition
- Influences economics, social policy, and health systems
- Provides essential data for decision-making in government and health planning
On public health
- Ageing population → shrinking workforce → more demand for elderly care nursing
homes, more chronic diseases
, - Migration balances out ageing population → push up fertility rate but also comes with
health challenges, urbanisation, diversity within bigger cities
- Life expectancy → double burden (communicable diseases and noncommunicable
diseases among the ageing population), longer healthy lives, reduced infectious disease
burden
EPIDEMIOLOGY
What: the study of the distribution and determinants of, health-related states or events in
specified populations and the application of the resulting knowledge to control health-related
problems in the population
● Distribution → descriptive epidemiology: distribution of health outcomes
● Determinants of health-related states or events → analytical epidemiology: factors
underlying health outcomes
● Control health-related problems → informing preventative measures and public health
policy
→ focused on understanding methods, diseases used as examples are not important
Epidemiologic transition: shift in mortality causes (dominance infectious diseases →
dominance chronic diseases)
- 18th century: infectious diseases, famine
- Early 20th century: CVD and cancer
- Now: as before but only at a later age
- We live longer but longer life not necessarily healthier life
Differences
World population prospects 2022 UN
- The world’s population continues to grow but the pace of growth is slowing down
- Rates of population growth vary significantly across countries and regions
- Levels and patterns of fertility and mortality vary widely around the world
- More and more countries have begun to experience population decline
- International migration is having important impacts on population trends for some
countries
- The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all components of population change, including
fertility, mortality migration
MIGRATION & MIGRANTS
UNDERSTANDING MIGRATION & MIGRANTS
Definitions
Migration: involves the change of residence across administrative borders
- The movement within the same neighbourhood, town, or municipality isn’t a migration
(from an administrative pov)
- Features of migration: change in residence & crossing of an administrative border (can
be internal border or international)
Migrant: a person living in another country, state, province, or municipality than where they
were born
DEMOGRAPHY
What: the scientific study of human population, including its size, distribution, composition,
and the factors that determine changes in its size, distribution, and composition
→ it’s about people and the population (size, structure, how they change over time)
→ focused on content (population change, developments), examples are important
→ focuses on 5 main aspects: size, distribution, composition, population dynamics (births,
deaths, migration), socioeconomic determinants and consequences of change
Components:
● Size: the number of persons in a given area at a given time
● Distribution: how populations are dispersed geographically (concentranted or spread
out)
● Composition: number of persons in age, sex, race, etc
○ Ascribed characteristics: fixed, don’t change over time (age, sex, race, year and
place of birth)
○ Achieved characteristics: changeable, can develop or shift through life
experiences or social change (income, education, nativity, ethnicity, ancestry,
religion, citizenship, marital)
Demographic transition: a decrease of death rates followed by a period of a strong decrease
in birth rates, resulting
- Increase life expectancy
- Increase in population numbers
The 4 stages of demographic transition
- High birth rate & high but fluctuating death rate
- Declining death rate & continuing high birth rate
- Declining birth & death rates
- Low death rate & low but fluctuating birth rate
→ birth rate needs to be high because we need to be sure that there’s enough children to take
care of elderly
Population study: a study of the numbers and kinds of people in an area and their changes
- Seeking explanations for the patterns of variation in a population and causes of changes
(e.g., why do we see more elderly people live in NL than in Spain), why the population
looks like this and why it’s diverse between European countries
- Projecting future changes and future consequences → do we need to act
Sources of data for demography
● Historical sources: genealogies (ancestors), cemetery data, church records, military
records, police records, censuses
● Population registers (modern way)
DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES
Core drivers of demography changes
1. Fertility (birth rate): how many children are being born, determines how fast a population
grows
- Based on vital registration (official records of births)
→ Determinants
- Biological factors: age, health, infertility
- social/cultural norms: religion, gender roles
- Economic factors: income, job security, childcare costs, housing
- Education: female education tends to lower fertility
, - Policies: pro-natalist (incentives to have more children) vs anti-natalist (family
planning, one-child policies)
- Access to contraception and reproductive healthcare
→ Trends
- Post-WWII baby boom (1950s): spike in fertility
- Second demographic transition: fertility decline due to contraception, women’s
education, urbanisation, changing values
- COVID-19 effects: babyboom in NL and DE but not in FR, IT, ESP due to income
uncertain, decrease in migrants, less fertility treatments
2. Mortality (death rate): the frequency of death in a population
- Based on registration of death
→ Determinants
- Health & medicine, Nutrition, Sanitation & hygiene, Living/working conditions, Lifestyle
factors, Wars, pandemics, disasters
- Epidemiological transition: improved healthcare, sanitation, reduced infectious disease,
interventions (antibiotics and vaccines)
→ Trends: epidemiological transition
- Pre-modern: infectious diseases and famine
- 19th-20th century: decline in infectious (sanitation, medicine)
- 20th century: chronic diseases (CVD, cancer)
- Today: ageing populations, double burden (infectious + chronic diseases)
→ Results: life expectancy has risen dramatically worldwide (but unevenly)
3. Migration (mobility): people moving in (immigration) or out (emigration), can increase or
decrease population size
- Using censuses or through indirect determination (using the residual difference between
actual population growth and what births-deaths can explain)
→ Determinants
- Economic factors: jobs, wages, labor demand
- Social factors: family reunification, education, networks
- Political factors: conflict
- Environmental factors: climate chage, disasters, resource scarcity
- Driven by globalisation inequality, conflict, labor demand, and demographic imbalances
between regions
→ Trends
- Globalisation has increased mobility
- Aging countries rely on migration to balance declining fertility and support the
workforce
- COVID-19 temporarily reduced migration due to border closures
Types of demographic measures
- Population characteristics → measures of structure: age, sex, race/ethnicity, education,
income/SES, marital status, employment status, location/geography
- Population dynamics → measures of change: fertility rate, mortality rate, migration
rate, marriage/divorce rate, natural increase (the difference between the birth rate and
the death rate)
Impacts of demographic changes
General impact:
- Alters population size, age structure, and social composition
- Influences economics, social policy, and health systems
- Provides essential data for decision-making in government and health planning
On public health
- Ageing population → shrinking workforce → more demand for elderly care nursing
homes, more chronic diseases
, - Migration balances out ageing population → push up fertility rate but also comes with
health challenges, urbanisation, diversity within bigger cities
- Life expectancy → double burden (communicable diseases and noncommunicable
diseases among the ageing population), longer healthy lives, reduced infectious disease
burden
EPIDEMIOLOGY
What: the study of the distribution and determinants of, health-related states or events in
specified populations and the application of the resulting knowledge to control health-related
problems in the population
● Distribution → descriptive epidemiology: distribution of health outcomes
● Determinants of health-related states or events → analytical epidemiology: factors
underlying health outcomes
● Control health-related problems → informing preventative measures and public health
policy
→ focused on understanding methods, diseases used as examples are not important
Epidemiologic transition: shift in mortality causes (dominance infectious diseases →
dominance chronic diseases)
- 18th century: infectious diseases, famine
- Early 20th century: CVD and cancer
- Now: as before but only at a later age
- We live longer but longer life not necessarily healthier life
Differences
World population prospects 2022 UN
- The world’s population continues to grow but the pace of growth is slowing down
- Rates of population growth vary significantly across countries and regions
- Levels and patterns of fertility and mortality vary widely around the world
- More and more countries have begun to experience population decline
- International migration is having important impacts on population trends for some
countries
- The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all components of population change, including
fertility, mortality migration
MIGRATION & MIGRANTS
UNDERSTANDING MIGRATION & MIGRANTS
Definitions
Migration: involves the change of residence across administrative borders
- The movement within the same neighbourhood, town, or municipality isn’t a migration
(from an administrative pov)
- Features of migration: change in residence & crossing of an administrative border (can
be internal border or international)
Migrant: a person living in another country, state, province, or municipality than where they
were born
