LESSON 1: DEFINITION AND SCOPE

1. Demography is the study of statistics such as births, deaths, income, or the incidence of disease, which illustrate the changing structure of human populations. It is the composition of a particular human population. The term was coined in mid 19th century: from Greek dēmos ‘the people’ + -graphy.

• A population is defined as a group of individuals of the same species living and interbreeding within a given area. Members of a population often rely on the same resources, are subject to similar environmental constraints, and depend on the availability of other members to persist over time.
• Scientists study a population by examining how individuals in that population interact with each other and how the population as a whole interacts with its environment.
• As a tool for objectively studying populations, population ecologists rely on a series of statistical measures, known as demographic parameters, to describe that population (Lebreton et al. 1992).
• The field of science interested in collecting and analyzing these numbers is termed population demographics, also known as demography.

Broadly defined, demography is the study of the characteristics of populations. It provides a mathematical description of how those characteristics change over time.

• Demographic information is used in many ways, including: Marketing, Governmental research, Surveys and sampling, Making policy recommendations, and Predicting where a society or group is headed in the future.

References: The Oxford Dictionary; Tarsi, K. & Tuff, T. (2012) Introduction to Population Demographics. Nature Education Knowledge