demography U.2 L.2

• Demography is the study of the characteristics and dynamics (change) of human populations including their size, movement, etc..

• Some statistics that demography covers : birth/death rates, age, migration, ethnicity, religion, age, economic status, etc.. 

• Demography is used for marketing and consumer trends, social planning, human resources (historians, economists) 

• Psychologists study demographics to understand how to treat people better, helps focus psychological research, education and treatment (ex. correlation between aging and depression)

• Anthropologists : use demography to help explain and understand why a culture behaves the way it does (ex. connections between declining birth rates and education)

• sociologists : use demography to help explain certain stresses on a society to explain why a society has changed or to assist in social planning (ex. should money go toward a new playground or new senior centre)

• demographics of the family : family is the basic unit of social activity, sociologist and anthropologist interested in status , roles and decision making of family members, in some societies having many children gives prestige to the mother and to the family - why people want children is a question that may concern a psychologist

• three major questions : what are the agents (causes) of change? what are the impediments (preventions) to change? what are the effects of change?

• study demographics using a variety of research methods such as interviews, statistics, surveys, observations and reviews of existing literature

rate of growth formula : (birth rate + immigration) - (mortality rate + emigration)

÷ total population