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Historical demography is the quantitative study of human population in the past. It is concerned with population size, with the three basic components of population change (fertility, mortality, and migration), and with population characteristics related to those components, such as marriage, socioeconomic status, and the configuration of families.
The sources of historical demography vary according to the period and topics of the study.
For the recent period - beginning in the early nineteenth century in most European countries, and later in the rest of the world - historical demographers make use of data collected by governments, including censuses and vital statistics. [1]
In the early modern period, historical demographers rely heavily on ecclesiastical records of baptisms, marriages, and burials, using methods developed by French historian Louis Henry, as well as hearth and poll tax records. In 1749 the first population census covering the whole country was conducted in the kingdom of Sweden, including today's Finland.
For population size, sources can also include the size of cities and towns, the size and density of smaller settlements, relying on field survey techniques, the presence or absence of agriculture on marginal land, and inferences from historical records. For population health and life expectancy, paleodemography, based on the study of skeletal remains, is another important approach for populations that precede the modern era, as is the study of ages of death recorded on funerary monuments.
The PUMS (Public User Microdata Samples) data set allows researchers to analyze contemporary and historical data sets. [2]
Historical analysis has played a central role in the study of population, from Thomas Malthus in the eighteenth century to major twentieth-century demographers such as Ansley Coale and Samuel H. Preston. The French historian Louis Henry (1911-1991) was chiefly responsible for the development of historical demography as a distinct subfield of demography. [3] In recent years, new research in historical demography has proliferated owing to the development of massive new population data collections, including the Demographic Data Base in Umeå, Sweden, [4] the Historical Sample of the Netherlands, [5] and the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS).
According to Willigan and Lynch, the main sources used by demographic historians include archaeological methods, parish registers starting about 1500 in Europe, civil registration records, enumerations, national census beginning about 1800, genealogies and family reconstruction studies, population registers, [6] and organizational and institutional records. Statistical methods have included model life tables, time series analysis, event history analysis, causal model building and hypothesis testing, As well as theories of the demographic transition and the epidemiological transition. [7] [8]
Demography is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition, and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration.
In demography, demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory which refers to the historical shift from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth rates and low death rates, as societies attain more technology, education and economic development. The demographic transition has occurred in most of the world over the past two centuries, bringing the unprecedented population growth of the post-Malthusian period, then reducing birth rates and population growth significantly in all regions of the world. The demographic transition strengthens economic growth process by three changes: (i) reduced dilution of capital and land stock, (ii) increased investment in human capital, and (iii) increased size of the labor force relative to the total population and changed age population distribution. Although this shift has occurred in many industrialized countries, the theory and model are frequently imprecise when applied to individual countries due to specific social, political and economic factors affecting particular populations.
Social research is research conducted by social scientists following a systematic plan. Social research methodologies can be classified as quantitative and qualitative.
IPUMS, originally the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, is the world's largest individual-level population database. IPUMS consists of microdata samples from United States (IPUMS-USA) and international (IPUMS-International) census records, as well as data from U.S. and international surveys. The records are converted into a consistent format and made available to researchers through a web-based data dissemination and analysis system.
In statistics, epidemiology, marketing and demography, a cohort is a group of subjects who share a defining characteristic.
Quantitative history is a method of historical research that uses quantitative, statistical and computer resources. It is a type of the social science history and has four major journals: Historical Methods, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, the Social Science History, and Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution.
Whipple's index, invented by American demographer George Chandler Whipple (1866–1924), is a method to measure the tendency for individuals to inaccurately report their actual age or date of birth. Respondents to a census or other survey sometimes report their age or date of birth as a round number, or to be more culturally favorable, for example, so that they appear younger or to have been born on a date considered luckier than their actual date of birth. The process of reporting a rounded or “lucky” age is known as age-heaping.
The French Institute for Demographic Studies is a French research institute specializing in demography and population studies in general.
Natural fertility is the fertility that exists without birth control or other medical interventions. The control is the number of children birthed to the parents and is modified as the number of children reaches the maximum. Natural fertility tends to decrease as a society modernizes. Women in a pre-modernized society typically have given birth to a large number of children by the time they are 50 years old, while women in post-modernized society only bear a small number by the same age. However, during modernization natural fertility rises, before family planning is practiced.
Ansley Johnson Coale, was one of America's foremost demographers. A native to Baltimore, Maryland, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1939, his Master of Arts in 1941, and his Ph.D. in 1947, all at Princeton University. A long-term director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton, Coale was especially influential for his work on the demographic transition and for his leadership of the European Fertility Project.
The middle of the 20th century was marked by a significant and persistent increase in fertility rates in many countries of the world, especially in the Western world. The term baby boom is often used to refer to this particular boom, generally considered to have started immediately after World War II, although some demographers place it earlier or during the war. This terminology led to those born during this baby boom being nicknamed the baby boomer generation.
The Office of Population Research (OPR) at Princeton University is the oldest population research center in the United States. Founded in 1936, the OPR is a leading demographic research and training center. Recent research activity has primarily focused on healthcare, social demography, urbanization, and migration. The OPR's research has been cited in numerous articles by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Louis Henry was a French historian. He was the founder of the historical demography and one-place study fields. His 1956 book co-written with Michel Fleury, Des registres paroissiaux à l'histoire de la population. Manuel de dépouillement et d'exploitation de l'état civil ancien laid the foundation for studies in those areas.
Population reconstruction is a method used by historical demographers. Using records such as church registries the size and composition of families living in a given region in a given past time is determined. This allows the identification and analysis of patterns of family formation, fertility, mortality, and migration, and of consequent trends such as population growth.
Karol Józef Krótki, FRSC was a renowned Polish Canadian demographer who, at various times, lived and worked in Poland, the United Kingdom, Sudan, Pakistan, Morocco and Canada. Professor Krotki was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1979.
The Minnesota Population Center (MPC) is a university-wide interdisciplinary research center at the University of Minnesota. MPC was established in 2000, absorbing two earlier population research organizations. The primary goals of the center are to foster large-scale cross-disciplinary research collaborations and to provide shared infrastructure for demographic research. The center now has 100 faculty affiliates from 10 University of Minnesota Colleges, over 50 graduate student affiliates and 120 administrative and research staff.
Anatole Romaniuk was a Ukrainian Canadian demographer who contributed to fertility and sterility, African demography, Aboriginal studies, demographic processes, and population forecasting. He played a key role in numerous population censuses, including the first population census in the Democratic Republic of Congo, several censuses in Canada from 1970 through to 1993, and the first census of independent Ukraine (2001).
The GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences is the largest German infrastructure institute for the social sciences. It is headquartered in Mannheim, with a location in Cologne. With basic research-based services and consulting covering all levels of the scientific process, GESIS supports researchers in the social sciences. As of 2017, the president of GESIS is Christof Wolf.
Melinda Mills, is a Canadian and Dutch demographer and sociologist. She is currently the Nuffield Professor of Sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Mills’ research spans a range of interdisciplinary topics at the intersection of demography, sociology, molecular genetics and statistics. Her substantive research specializes in fertility and human reproductive behaviour, assortative mating, labour market, life course and inequality.
William Brass was a Scottish demographer. He developed indirect methods for estimating mortality and fertility in populations with inaccurate or incomplete data, often dubbed "Brass methods" after him.
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