Social Demography
Class 1
What is social demography?
Aim
• Societal
o Provide insights in population issues / trends and social problems resulting from
these population issues
o → Detect and interpret current demographic trends
▪ E.g. migration, fertility, climate change, ageing societies
• Theoretical
o Provide insights into the most important theories and frameworks concerning the
relation between population and social phenomena
o → Detect and interpret current demographic trends
• Methodological
o Knowledge of data sources
o Teach methods and techniques to describe demographic structures and processes
o → Be capable to calculate and interpret demographic indicators correctly in order to
document goals 1 and 2
A quote
• “If you are not interested in demography, you are not interested in yourself” (J. McFalls,
2007)
• Consider
o When were you born? How many babies were born at that time?
o What’s your gender and how will this determine your identity?
o Will you have children? Grandchildren?
o How many times will you move in your life?
Formal demography
• Formal demography
o Mathematic demography, models etc.
o Methods and techniques to investigate population issues scientifically
o = Conditio sine qua non
• Our level of technicity?
o The level necessary to correctly investigate and interpret demographic events
▪ E.g. what does an increase of the number of births imply?
▪ How should we interpret and increase in life expectancy?
o Elementary level of mathematical knowledge and skills: +, -, * and especially /
Social demography: what?
• Investigates the relationship between demographic and societal events
o Demography → Society
o Society → Demography
o Reciprocal relationship
• Most important scientist: Malthus
1
,Founding fathers?
• Thinking and philosophizing on population issues: as old as mankind
o Confucius (551-479)
o Plato (427-347)
o Aristoteles (384-322)
o Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
• Counting of populations < complex societies, strong states
• Development of demography as a scientific discipline?
Demography: a scientific discipline
• John Graunt (1620 – 1674): life table avant la lettre
• Edmund Haley (1656-1742): first life table (1693)
• Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834): “Essay on the Principle of Population” (1798)
• William Farr (1807-1883): General Register Office – epidemiology – decennial lifetables
• Alfred Lotka (1880-1949): Population Dynamics – theory of the stable population
• Adolphe Quételet (1796-1874): Statistics applied on population and population issues
• Pierre-François Verhulst (1804-1849): “Notice sur la loi que la population suit" (logistic
function)
1662, John Graunt
• Textile merchant
• Hobby: demography (avant-la-lettre)
• Registers from the church to study
• Book (1662)
o Biologic and social / societal dimension
o Constructed a “lifetable” (avant-la-lettre), using the bills of mortality (= weekly
mortality statistics in London)
▪ Life expectancy
• First author who established a (kind of) lifetable
o Investigates the age distribution of deaths in a systematic way
o Number of survivants in each 100 births
▪ At age 6: 64
▪ At age 16: 40
▪ At age 26: 25
▪ At age 36: 16
▪ At age 46: 10
▪ At age 56: 6
▪ At age 66: 3
▪ At age 76: 1
▪ At age 80: 0
• Reciprocal dependency between demographic parameters
o Number of births + lifetables → number of women belonging to the reproductive age
groups
o In a city: more deaths than births
o In rural areas: vice versa
▪ → Growth in London?
2
, • In the population: number of men = number of women
o → “Christian prohibition on polygamy is in accordance with the law of nature”
• Father of the formal, analytical demography
1798, Thomas Malthus
• “Essay on the Principle of Population”
o Reaction against the ideals of the Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century
o Enlightenment: optimism about progress, rationality, science, technology and
population as a self-regulating system avoiding overpopulation
o Malthus confronted this optimism with the economic situation of England at that
time
▪ Growth of the English population (< decline of mortality, increase of the
number of marriages and births)
▪ England became an important country, was not self-sufficient anymore
• Problem
o Population grows according to an exponential function (1, 2, 4, 8, 16…)
o Food supply grows according to an arithmetic function (1, 2, 3, 4…)
o Population growth should be kept in line with food production
▪ Preventive checks: “moral restraints” such as delayed marriage in
combination with
▪ Positive checks: such as diseases, starvation and war leading to premature
death
▪ Opponent of the poor laws: the poor have no rights on support whenever
they fail to restraint themselves morally and to have fewer children
• → Father of demographic theories
• → Political meaning of demography
Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874)
• Belgian, astronomer, mathematician; BMI
• Procedures for scientific and standardized data collection
o Belgian census in 1846
o Schedule for national data collections
o International standardisation of methods to collect, process, analyse and present
population data
o Founder of a number of international statistical organisations: for ex. International
Statistical Institute (1885)
• Statistics applied on human being (“physique sociale”): “l’homme moyen”
• → Father of standardized data collection
1855, Achille Guillard
• “Eléments de statistique humaine, ou démographie comparée"
• 1855 : First use of the concept "demography”
• Definition Guillard: “natural and social history of the human specie”
o In demography both social and biologic processes are important
o Predominantly quantitative
Demography? What?
3
, What is demography?
• UNO definition
o The study of human populations
o Essentially a quantitative study: size, structure, evolution and general characteristics
of populations
• Dictionary of demographic and reproductive health terminology
o Scientific study of human populations, including
▪ Sizes, compositions, distributions, densities, growth and other characteristics
▪ Causes and consequences of population changes
• Fertility, mortality, marriage and divorce (nuptiality), migration
• New definition indicates
o Not only demography (describing)
o Bur also “demology” (causes and consequences)
• Populations = collection of people
o Often regionally delimited
o Often temporarily delimited
▪ Transversal: population at one point in time
▪ Longitudinal: evolution of the population through time
• Demography
o Restricted definition: analytical and formal demography without link to society
o Broader definition: the interdisciplinary science par excellence
o From anthropology to biomedical science
▪ Ecological demography
▪ Social demography (sociologists, economists, social geographers)
▪ Historical demography
▪ Anthropologic demography
Different kinds of demography
• Historical demography
o Initially: interest in historical population issues → Theoretical speculations
o Three research projects changed this situation
▪ M. Fleury & L. Henry (1956): method to reconstruct nuclear family based on
parish registers
▪ During the 1960s: study of A. Coale: large-scale historical-demographic
project concerning the decline of fertility in Europe of the 19th and 20th
century (Princeton)
▪ Mid 1960s: P. Laslet triggers a research concerning the size and structure of
households between 1500-1800 and in the 19th century (Cambridge)
• Anthropological demography
o Demographers increasingly recognised the importance of cultural aspects
o Anthropologists increasingly recognized the role of demographic phenomena in order
to understand foreign cultures
o Large gap between both disciplines bridged by
▪ Population explosion in southern countries
▪ Demographic parameters are important to understand specific habits in
certain communities
▪ Increased interested in cultural differences to explain demographic behaviour
4
Class 1
What is social demography?
Aim
• Societal
o Provide insights in population issues / trends and social problems resulting from
these population issues
o → Detect and interpret current demographic trends
▪ E.g. migration, fertility, climate change, ageing societies
• Theoretical
o Provide insights into the most important theories and frameworks concerning the
relation between population and social phenomena
o → Detect and interpret current demographic trends
• Methodological
o Knowledge of data sources
o Teach methods and techniques to describe demographic structures and processes
o → Be capable to calculate and interpret demographic indicators correctly in order to
document goals 1 and 2
A quote
• “If you are not interested in demography, you are not interested in yourself” (J. McFalls,
2007)
• Consider
o When were you born? How many babies were born at that time?
o What’s your gender and how will this determine your identity?
o Will you have children? Grandchildren?
o How many times will you move in your life?
Formal demography
• Formal demography
o Mathematic demography, models etc.
o Methods and techniques to investigate population issues scientifically
o = Conditio sine qua non
• Our level of technicity?
o The level necessary to correctly investigate and interpret demographic events
▪ E.g. what does an increase of the number of births imply?
▪ How should we interpret and increase in life expectancy?
o Elementary level of mathematical knowledge and skills: +, -, * and especially /
Social demography: what?
• Investigates the relationship between demographic and societal events
o Demography → Society
o Society → Demography
o Reciprocal relationship
• Most important scientist: Malthus
1
,Founding fathers?
• Thinking and philosophizing on population issues: as old as mankind
o Confucius (551-479)
o Plato (427-347)
o Aristoteles (384-322)
o Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
• Counting of populations < complex societies, strong states
• Development of demography as a scientific discipline?
Demography: a scientific discipline
• John Graunt (1620 – 1674): life table avant la lettre
• Edmund Haley (1656-1742): first life table (1693)
• Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834): “Essay on the Principle of Population” (1798)
• William Farr (1807-1883): General Register Office – epidemiology – decennial lifetables
• Alfred Lotka (1880-1949): Population Dynamics – theory of the stable population
• Adolphe Quételet (1796-1874): Statistics applied on population and population issues
• Pierre-François Verhulst (1804-1849): “Notice sur la loi que la population suit" (logistic
function)
1662, John Graunt
• Textile merchant
• Hobby: demography (avant-la-lettre)
• Registers from the church to study
• Book (1662)
o Biologic and social / societal dimension
o Constructed a “lifetable” (avant-la-lettre), using the bills of mortality (= weekly
mortality statistics in London)
▪ Life expectancy
• First author who established a (kind of) lifetable
o Investigates the age distribution of deaths in a systematic way
o Number of survivants in each 100 births
▪ At age 6: 64
▪ At age 16: 40
▪ At age 26: 25
▪ At age 36: 16
▪ At age 46: 10
▪ At age 56: 6
▪ At age 66: 3
▪ At age 76: 1
▪ At age 80: 0
• Reciprocal dependency between demographic parameters
o Number of births + lifetables → number of women belonging to the reproductive age
groups
o In a city: more deaths than births
o In rural areas: vice versa
▪ → Growth in London?
2
, • In the population: number of men = number of women
o → “Christian prohibition on polygamy is in accordance with the law of nature”
• Father of the formal, analytical demography
1798, Thomas Malthus
• “Essay on the Principle of Population”
o Reaction against the ideals of the Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century
o Enlightenment: optimism about progress, rationality, science, technology and
population as a self-regulating system avoiding overpopulation
o Malthus confronted this optimism with the economic situation of England at that
time
▪ Growth of the English population (< decline of mortality, increase of the
number of marriages and births)
▪ England became an important country, was not self-sufficient anymore
• Problem
o Population grows according to an exponential function (1, 2, 4, 8, 16…)
o Food supply grows according to an arithmetic function (1, 2, 3, 4…)
o Population growth should be kept in line with food production
▪ Preventive checks: “moral restraints” such as delayed marriage in
combination with
▪ Positive checks: such as diseases, starvation and war leading to premature
death
▪ Opponent of the poor laws: the poor have no rights on support whenever
they fail to restraint themselves morally and to have fewer children
• → Father of demographic theories
• → Political meaning of demography
Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874)
• Belgian, astronomer, mathematician; BMI
• Procedures for scientific and standardized data collection
o Belgian census in 1846
o Schedule for national data collections
o International standardisation of methods to collect, process, analyse and present
population data
o Founder of a number of international statistical organisations: for ex. International
Statistical Institute (1885)
• Statistics applied on human being (“physique sociale”): “l’homme moyen”
• → Father of standardized data collection
1855, Achille Guillard
• “Eléments de statistique humaine, ou démographie comparée"
• 1855 : First use of the concept "demography”
• Definition Guillard: “natural and social history of the human specie”
o In demography both social and biologic processes are important
o Predominantly quantitative
Demography? What?
3
, What is demography?
• UNO definition
o The study of human populations
o Essentially a quantitative study: size, structure, evolution and general characteristics
of populations
• Dictionary of demographic and reproductive health terminology
o Scientific study of human populations, including
▪ Sizes, compositions, distributions, densities, growth and other characteristics
▪ Causes and consequences of population changes
• Fertility, mortality, marriage and divorce (nuptiality), migration
• New definition indicates
o Not only demography (describing)
o Bur also “demology” (causes and consequences)
• Populations = collection of people
o Often regionally delimited
o Often temporarily delimited
▪ Transversal: population at one point in time
▪ Longitudinal: evolution of the population through time
• Demography
o Restricted definition: analytical and formal demography without link to society
o Broader definition: the interdisciplinary science par excellence
o From anthropology to biomedical science
▪ Ecological demography
▪ Social demography (sociologists, economists, social geographers)
▪ Historical demography
▪ Anthropologic demography
Different kinds of demography
• Historical demography
o Initially: interest in historical population issues → Theoretical speculations
o Three research projects changed this situation
▪ M. Fleury & L. Henry (1956): method to reconstruct nuclear family based on
parish registers
▪ During the 1960s: study of A. Coale: large-scale historical-demographic
project concerning the decline of fertility in Europe of the 19th and 20th
century (Princeton)
▪ Mid 1960s: P. Laslet triggers a research concerning the size and structure of
households between 1500-1800 and in the 19th century (Cambridge)
• Anthropological demography
o Demographers increasingly recognised the importance of cultural aspects
o Anthropologists increasingly recognized the role of demographic phenomena in order
to understand foreign cultures
o Large gap between both disciplines bridged by
▪ Population explosion in southern countries
▪ Demographic parameters are important to understand specific habits in
certain communities
▪ Increased interested in cultural differences to explain demographic behaviour
4
