The Agenda of Population Studies: A Commentary and Complaint

Since 1950 modern demographic history has witnessed more than a doubling of world population a rise of over 15 years in life expectancy and a decline of average total fertility rate from 5 to 3.5 children/woman. The next 79 years will see a final doubling of population size with aging societies. Human aspirations will be constrained by environmental stresses. Demography has roots in classical political economy with malthus as progenitor and is concerned with life tables and actuarial techniques of population dynamics represented by Graunt Halley Deparcieux and Lotka. Demography assesses social change to account for post transition trends in fertility mortality and family structure; the potential human life span; and family decay. Although demographers have dismissed sociobiology behavioral demography examines social economic and cultural behaviors governing fertility and mortality in addition to vital events. Family change in high-fertility Africa or the low-fertility West is highly relevant for forecasting future fertility as are rules of family and household formation labor market practices and the national administrative systems. In the late 1990s and the early 21st century the UNs or World Banks demographic projections assume a smooth demographic transition and thereafter a stationary population. Post-Cold War liberalized economies and multiparty democracies may be left with scant economic and political resources. North-South issues have been sidelined but demographic regimes may be regarded as serious social science if its content is defined by subject matter rather than by methodological approach therefore it should adopt a deliberate eclecticism with cross-disciplinary range.