Population and Environment

Catalog description

This is a class in demographic methods and theory as applied to problems of poverty, health, and the environment. Population problems lie at the heart of human-environment interactions and sustainability so understanding how demographers measure, model, and forecast population phenomena is a critical element of sustainability science. Each week of class will focus on a specific set of methods from formal demography that can be generally applied. However, the framing of each of these tools will be done around topics of central importance to sustainability. We will particularly focus on limits to growth, zero population growth and its consequences, and population projection because of their centrality to debates within sustainability. We will also discuss data sources and their often severe limitations for understanding the different sustainability applications of population science. Topics covered will include: balance equations, population growth, age, cohorts, and periods; mortality, life tables, population projection, age/stage composition and stable population theory; measures of fertility, standardization, migration, data sources and limitations, model life tables.