Principles of Demography

Catalog description

This course examines fundamental concepts and ideas in Demography, and U.S. and world population trends associated with these concepts. This course provides an overview of demographic research and scholarship as a basis for the Applied Demography certificate and the Masters in Professional Studies degree in Applied Demography. The scope of the course content is broad, rather than in-depth, covering central disciplinary concepts and associated key theoretical ideas and empirical population trends. In particular the course investigates topics such as population growth, transitions in family patterns, fertility patterns and policy, immigration and growing population diversity, race and ethnic population inequality, internal migration and residential segregation, health and mortality patterns, population aging, and economic well-being and the environment.Building on insights from the study of the above topics, students conduct a comparative population analysis of a developed vs. developing country or of two regionally dispersed U.S. states using census and vital statistics demographic data to document five or more key over-time population trends. Results from this analysis are then used to address applied demography questions about the relationships with outcomes for either business demography or public policy demography.Students will learn fundamental disciplinary concepts, central theoretical scholarship ideas, major empirical U.S. and world population trends, and experience a hands-on skill-enhancing population data analysis project which integrates knowledge and application learning.