LESSON 2: THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF POPULATION 

In its simplest definition, demography is the scientific study of human populations.

• According to Landry (1945), the term demography was first used by the Belgian statistician Achille Guillard in his 1855 publication: Eléments de statistique humaine, ou démographie comparée.
• However, John Graunt’s Natural and Political Observations Mentioned in a Following Index, and Made Upon the Bills of Mortality, published in 1662 in London, is generally acknowledged to be the first published study in the field of demography. The book, demonstrated the usefulness of compilations of information relating to the population of London by presenting statistics on a wide range of characteristics such as employment, age and sex composition, health and environment.
• Graunt also published an early version of the life table which, having been further developed by Edmund Halley and Joshua Milne, led to the publication in 1840 of the first official life table by William Farr, compiler of scientific abstracts in the General Register Office for England and Wales. The life table describes the ages at which an event, death, occurs in a population.
• The statistical concepts of the life table remain today the fundamental elements of demographic methods. Measurement in demography applies concepts and methods from statistics and mathematics.

References: IUSSP