Unit 1 - INTRODUCTION

DEFINITION OF DEMOGRAPHY
 The word ‘demography’ comes from two Greek words:
 ‘Demos’ meaning people, and
 ‘Graphos’ meaning to write or to draw.
 It was first used in 1855 by a Belgian statistician called Achille Guillard in the title of his book
“Elements de Statistique Humaine ou Démographie Comparée” which in English reads
“Elements of Human Statistics or Comparative Demography.”
 Guillard defined demography as “the mathematical knowledge of populations, their general
movements, and their physical, civil, intellectual and moral state.”
 This definition is not far from the modern definition of demography. Below are several
definitions of demography as known today:
 It is the scientific study of human population, including its size, distribution, composition,
and the factors that determine changes in its size, distribution, and composition
(Swanson and Siegel, 2004).
 It is the scientific study of human populations, primarily with respect to their size, their
structure and their development (United Nations Multilingual Demographic Dictionary
1958).
 The study of human population in relation to the changes brought about by the interplay
of births, deaths and migration” (Pressat 1985).
 The study of the determinants and consequences of population change.
SCOPE OF DEMOGRAPHY AS A SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE
From the above definitions, it is noted that demography focuses on five aspects of the human
population, namely: size, distribution, composition, components of population change, and indirect
determinants of population change.

i. Population size
Refers to the number of persons in an area at a given point in time. When one talks about
population size, reference is made to a well-defined/delimited/demarcated area and time. Time is in
reference to the past, present or future population size.
For example: the population of Zambia in 2000 was 9.9 million; the population of Zambia is currently
19.6 million; in 2030 the population of Zambia is projected to be 24.7 million. In the above examples
of population size, reference is made to the area under focus (which is Zambia) and year (being
2000, 2023 and 2030) when the population size existed, currently exists and is projected to exist.
ii. Population distribution
Refers to the manner in which the population is dispersed (spread) in geographic space at a given
point in time. Population distribution can be measured using population density and concentration
which generally look at the number of people living per square kilometre.
iii. Population composition
Refers to the composition of the population in terms of population (i.e. demographic) and socio-
economic characteristics.

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  Examples of demographic characteristics include age, sex, marital status, year of
birth, place of birth, etc.
 Examples of socio-economic characteristics include characteristics such as race,
ethnicity, religion, citizenship, household characteristics, living arrangements,
educational level, school enrolment, labour force status, income, and wealth, etc.
People’s characteristics can either be ascribed or achieved.
 Ascribed characteristics are those that either do not change over a person’s lifetime,
or change in a highly predictable manner. For example:
 A person’s place of birth or sex does not change in his/her lifetime.
 A person’s age changes in a predictable manner because every year
everyone grows one year older.
 Achieved characteristics are those that change over a person’s lifetime or can vary
in ways that may not be very predictable. For example, place of residence,
occupation, marital status, and educational attainment, etc. These characteristics
are acquired by people as they pass through life.
iv. Components of population change (population dynamics)
These are factors that directly lead to population change, and they are three: births, deaths, and
migration. They are also referred to as ‘direct determinants of population change.’
 Birth is defined as ‘the complete expulsion or extraction of the product of a pregnancy
regardless of the duration of pregnancy.’ A birth may either be a live or still birth, and a
single birth or multiple births (e.g. twins, triplets, etc.). The study of births is called fertility.
 Death is defined as ‘the complete and permanent disappearance of all evidence of life after
a live birth has taken place.’ This definition excludes deaths before a live birth, such as
stillbirths. The study of deaths is called mortality.
 Migration refers to the permanent movement of people from one location to another.
Therefore, for migration to occur, a person should change his/her usual geographic
place/area of residence. For example, when a person shifts to Kabwe from Kitwe, it is
considered migration while the movement of students to Mulungushi University for school is
not migrantion because they maintain where they come from as their usual place of
residence and not Mulungushi University community.
v. Indirect determinants of population change
These are factors that contribute to population change by influencing the three direct determinants
of population change described above (fertility, mortality and migration). Indirect determinants of
population change are mainly classified as socio-economic factors.
 Social factors include marital and family status/formation, place of birth, literacy, and
educational attainment, etc.
 Economic characteristics include economic activity, employment status, occupation,
industry, and income, among others.
 Other factors such as health, nutrition, medical accessibility, contraceptive use, etc, are
encompassed within socioeconomic determinants.

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Examples of how these factors affect fertility, mortality and migration
 The level of fertility is indirectly affected by factors such as family formation, marital status
(single, married, divorced or widowed) and use of contraception. These factors have
influence over how many children one will end up having.
 Mortality is indirectly affected by factors such as nutrition, the efficacy of public health
measures, medical advancements and accessibility, etc. These factors influence a person’s
health and chances of survival. For example, poor nutrition among children may lead to
malnutrition, illness/poor health and ultimately death.
 Migration is affected by characteristics such as age, occupation, educational attainment or
generally what are called “push” and “pull” factors. Push and pull factors influence a
person’s likelihood/chance of migrating. For example, graduates are likely to migrate from
their area of origin to other areas in search of employment.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FORMAL DEMOGRAPHY AND POPULATION STUDIES
 Demography consists of several subfields but, broadly, it can be classified into two
fundamental types:
 Formal demography, and
 Applied demography. Population studies is considered a subfield of applied
demography because it applies demographic events on other fields.

Formal Demography
 It is also called theoretical, pure or basic demography.
 It is the narrow scope of demography as it focuses on analysis of demographic data.
Demographic analysis is confined to the study of components of population change, which
are fertility, mortality and migration.
 Formal demography tries to answer theoretical and empirical questions of interest
concerning population change. For example:
 What would happen to Zambia’s population size if levels of mortality and or fertility
were to continuously reduce over the next 10 years?
 What is the trend in infant mortality in Zambia?
 What is the total fertility rate for Zambia currently?
 Since formal demography mainly analyses population change using figures, it has close ties
with statistics and mathematics.

Population studies
 It is concerned with the three main population processes (fertility, mortality and migration)
and their relationship with factors external to demography such as social, economic,
political, biological, genetic and geographical factors, etc.
 Population studies thus, seeks not only to understand and explain the patterns, differentials
and trends revealed by demographic analysis of fertility, mortality and migration but also to
assess their implications and linkages to other phenomena and fields. In other words, it
tends to focus on relationships between demographic and non-demographic variables.
 Since population studies try to apply demographic data and findings to explain observed
changes in other fields, it is considered a subfield of applied demography. Applied
demography is a field of demography that focuses on application of demographic data and
findings (generated through formal demography) in a number of fields. For example, the

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 pressure of population change on resources, family formation, assimilation of immigrants
(migration policy/law), urban problems, availability of labour force/manpower, etc.

HISTORY OF DEMOGRAPHY
 Demography dates back to years before the birth of Christ (BC). People have always had
concerns about population change (increase or decrease) and its impact on society.
 A number of scholars have shaped demography to what it is today. Below is a summary of
the contributions of early and modern writers on demographic thought.
Confucius (502–479 BC)
 He thought that large population growth could result in lower labour productivity due to
abundance of labour.
 When labour is abundant, productivity per worker tends to be low.
Plato 360 BC and Aristotle 354 BC
 Plato and Aristotle were Greek philosophers.
 They were concerned with the attainment of an optimum population size for the wellbeing
of society.
 For society to have an acceptable standard of living, there is need to achieve an optimal
population size that matches the available resources.
 Thus, an optimal population size is one that matches the available resources.
John Graunt (1620-1674)
 Graunt was an English ‘statistician’. He is widely considered to be the founder of
Demography. This is because he pioneered the study of mortality. His study on mortality is
regarded as the first known statistical analysis of demographic data.
 Graunt collected data from different parish churches of London containing information
about church membership, and their records of births and deaths.
 Using this information, in 1662 he published a book called ‘Natural and Political
Observations Made Upon the Bills of Mortality.’
 In the book, he developed what is now considered the first record of a life table.
However, the life table was primitive in the sense that it only presented the
proportion of deaths and survival (by age) among the London population.
 From the records of population size (church members), births and deaths among
congregants in London churches, Graunt made interesting observations about population
trends:
 He observed that there were very high levels of both fertility and mortality in
London.
 He observed that for every 100 people born in London, only 16 were still alive at age
36, and only 3 at age 66.
 He also uncovered a high incidence of infant mortality. This means that mortality
among children who were less than one year was high.
 He also observed that mortality among males was higher than mortality among
females. This meant that although more males than females were born, fewer
reached old age. However, on balance, there was a fairly even number of adult
males and females in the population of London.

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  Graunt also developed a concept called ‘the probability of dying’ which is widely used to
estimate mortality.
 The concept of probability of dying formed a springboard for the formulation of
improved life tables and related life expectancy by Edmund Halley.
Edmund Halley (1656–1742)
 He is better known for his work in astronomy than for his contribution to the development
of demography.
 His contribution to the development of demography was building mortality tables, which
laid the foundation for the future production of actuarial tables (a form of life tables) used in
life insurance.
 In 1693, using the concept of the ‘probability of dying’ developed by John Graunt, Halley
published mortality tables (life tables) for the city of Breslau (now Wroclaw) in Poland which
analysed/presented mortality by age.
 The mortality tables he published are regarded as one of the earliest works to relate
mortality and age in a population.
Thomas Malthus – 1798
 Malthus is also regarded as the father of demography since he pioneered modern
demographic studies.
 He was one of the first modern writers to make observations about population
change.
 Malthus was concerned about population growth and the world’s carrying capacity. The
world’s carrying capacity can be defined as the capacity of the world to hold a maximum
number of people without running out of food.
 In 1798, he wrote a book called ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the
Future Improvement of Society’ in which he postulated his theory on population.
 In the book, Malthus made two key (physiological) assumptions:
 That humans must have food and,
 That the drive for sex (fertility) will always be a fundamental part of man.
 From these two assumptions, he outlined his theory about the rate of population growth
and food production.
 He postulated that population grows at a ‘geometric rate’ while the means of subsistence
(food production) increases at an ‘arithmetic’ rate.
 By population growing at a geometric rate, he meant that population grew in a
doubling manner e.g. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16.
 By food production growing at an arithmetic rate, he meant that food was being
produced in a linear manner, i.e. by 1 unit, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
 According to Malthus, population was growing faster because man’s power of reproduction
greatly exceeds his power of food production. Malthus writes the following in his book:
“the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce
subsistence for man.”
 Since population grow at a faster rate than food production, this was pressing against
available resources. The effect of this was that people would eventually run out of food since
it was being produced at a lower rate than population growth.

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  To arrest this rapid population growth and bring it within resource limits, Malthus proposed
what he called ‘population checks.’ He writes the following:
“By the law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these
two unequal powers must be kept equal. This implies a strong and constantly operating
check on population from the difficulty of subsistence.”
 He proposed two types of ‘checks’ on population growth:
 Positive Checks: These are checks that raise the death rate. Malthus promoted
increasing mortality as a control measure to arrest rapid population growth. When the
death rate increases, it means that more people in a population are dying which may
lead to reduction in population size, especially if birth rates are also reducing. In order to
increase the death rate, Malthus promoted population-reduction methods such as
hunger, disease, war, pestilences (plagues), etc.
 Preventive Checks: These are checks that lower a population’s birth rate. When the
fertility rate reduces, it means that the rate at which the population grows also reduces.
In order to reduce the birth rate, Malthus proposed methods that would induce slow
population growth such as abortion, birth control, prostitution, postponement of
marriage and celibacy, etc.
Criticism of Malthus’s theory
 Malthus lived at a time when the industrial revolution was occurring (around the 1750s). He
was not aware that the world had reached a tipping point which would avert his predictions
of disastrous overpopulation which would outstrip food production. He did not foresee that
new technologies were about to transform agricultural production, leading to a significant
increase in food production as well as new sources of food from other continents. The
industrial revolution would also go on to provide employment for people, hence alleviating
poverty. Thus, as the world become more advanced, it became unlikely that population
growth would outstrip food production.
 At the time Malthus lived, the European demographic transition was also about to
commence due to technological/industrial advancement that the world had started
experiencing. The continent was thus, about to start moving from a situation of high fertility
and mortality to decreasing fertility and mortality, and eventually to a situation where both
fertility and mortality are low (current situation in developed countries). The decrease in
fertility has been necessitated mostly by contraceptive use while mortality reduction has
been due to improvements in public health (preventive care such as improved sanitation)
and medical/clinical care (curative care using medicine).
 Migration has also played a part in alleviating Malthus’ prediction that rapid population
growth would outstrip food production. Europe was about to experience new availability of
land both within the continent and in new lands overseas which would alleviate rural
population pressure through migration aided by improved transportation.
While Malthus is criticized for his failure to anticipate that the agricultural revolution, emigration,
and birth control would avert his predictions of disastrous overpopulation, he understood the
dynamics of the population drivers of fertility and mortality. His thoughts laid the basis for modern
population studies. It is for this reason that he is considered the father of demography.

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Karl Marx
 He is well known for his writings on socialism/communism and capitalism, and not
population. He is regarded as the father of communism. He strongly opposed capitalism.
 Marx’s view on population concentrated more on the consequence of population growth.
 His view was that in a communist/socialist type of governance, population growth was not a
problem as people being added to the population are readily absorbed by the economy with
no side effects.
 According to Marx, the socialist government is able to take care of everyone in
society since whatever is produced in the economy is supposed to be shared based
on one’s need.
 On the other hand, Marx argued that population growth was a problem in a capitalist
society. He claimed that in a capitalist society, population growth led to overpopulation and
poverty.
 This is because capitalism promotes the acquisition of wealth for private use. Hence,
the poor become poorer while the richer become richer.
Emile Durkheim
 He was a French sociologist born in the late nineteenth century. Just like Karl Marx, his
argument also focused on the consequences of population growth.
 He argued that population growth leads to greater societal specialization because the
struggle for existence is more acute when there are more people. According to Durkheim,
population growth creates competition for society’s resources. Hence, in order to have an
advantage over others in the struggle for survival, people resort to specialization.
 He further argued that if you compare a primitive society with an industrialized society, the
primitive society is not very specialized.
 By contrast, in industrialized societies there is a lot of differentiation (specialisation)
as people compete for survival due to population growth.
Alfred Lotka (1925)
 He developed what is called the “stable population model.”
 The stable population model is a very important demographic analysis tool as it
helps to understand population dynamics.
 The model assumes that when a population is experiencing constant birth and death
rates and it is closed to migration over time it will eventually have an unchanging
age structure, hence stable. While absolute numbers change by age (and total
population), the age structure doesn’t.
 Thus, the stable population concept helps demographers to assess past, present and future
population trajectory to see whether a population’s age structure is moving towards the
stable state.
 The stable population model also helps demographers to explain the concept of population
momentum, which is a situation where a population that has reached replacement level
fertility continues to grow for some time before it stops.
 When a population’s fertility reaches replacement level, mortality is constant and
net migration is zero yet the population is still experiencing growth, then the only
factor leading to growth is population momentum.

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Ansley Johnson Coale (1917–2002)
 Coale was one of America’s foremost demographers, especially influential for his work on
the demographic transition, the relationship between population growth and economic
development, and development of model life tables.
 He was educated at Princeton University which he later joined as a faculty member in 1947.
He also served as president of the Population Association of America between 1967-1968
and president of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population from 1977 to
1981.
 Coale’s first major influential work in demography was his co-publication of a book in 1958
together with Hoover called ‘Population Growth and Economic Development in Low-Income
Countries’ in 1958. In the book, they showed that slowing population growth could increase
economic development.
 Coale together with another demographer named Paul Demeny published ‘Regional Model
Life Tables and Stable Populations’ in 1966. These life tables are now commonly known as
‘the Coale-Demeny Model Life Tables’ or ‘Princeton Model Life Tables.’ The life tables they
published proved to be very crucial in the estimation of mortality of countries with poor data
collection on deaths. Thus, Coale and Demeny’s initiative of developing regional model life
tables was very ingenious.
 Coale and Demeny used mortality data from mostly European countries to develop the life
tables, hence the name ‘regional model life table.’ The resulting life tables were grouped
into four categories called ‘families’ depending on the level and shape of mortality that
existed in the regions where data was collected from. The families or categories are East,
West, North and South life table. The leading/first column of the Coale-Demeny lifetables is
the probability of dying (nqx).
 Coale and Demeny’s model life tables proved invaluable in the development of later
techniques for estimating mortality and fertility in populations with inaccurate or incomplete
data. Along with William Brass, Coale pioneered the development and use of these later
techniques. Particularly, Brass developed what is called the Brass Relational Model Life Table
which can be created from at least a pair of mortality data.
 Coale also contributed to our understanding of the demographic transition. This is said to be
his major scientific contribution to demography. He was the architect of a project called “the
European Fertility Project” which analysed the fertility pattern of Europe over a long period
of time. His study revealed a remarkable decline in marital fertility in Europe.
John Hajnal
 Hajnal developed a measure which assesses a cohort’s mean age at first marriage. He called
it the Singulate Mean Age at First Marriage (SMAM).
 The concept is a straightforward measure of the average age at which people marry for the
first time.
 When cohort data are not available, the SMAM can be calculated from period data, which is
readily available from census data.

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  Since it has few data needs, Hajnal’s SMAM is a very popular measure of the mean age at
marriage.
 The only data required are proportions of the population that has never married
before by age,
 Proportions never married are calculated by dividing the population single (i.e.
never married before) at each age by the total population.
SMAM Formula
For data presented in single ages:

𝑆𝑀𝐴𝑀=

Grouped data:

William Brass (1921–1999)

He was a distinguished Scottish demographer, statistician and mathematician. He contributed
immensely to the study of mortality and fertility, and in the process creating a new and important
strand of demography.
After graduating from Edinburgh University with a Masters degree in Mathematics in 1947, the
following year he joined the East African Statistical Department in Kenya as a Statistician, and later
as the institution’s Deputy Director. It was during this time that Brass developed many of his ideas
on the collection of demographic data and indirect estimation techniques for analysis of mortality
and fertility.
Brass’s biggest problem was finding ways of estimating fertility and mortality for developing
countries where many births and deaths go unrecorded due to poor or non-functional VRS and
response errors in data collected through censuses and surveys. This rendered collected data
unreliable to use for measurement of fertility and mortality, and generally trends in the size and
structure of a population. To solve this problem, Brass developed several mathematical techniques
(often called Brass methods or indirect techniques) that could be used to measure fertility, and both
child and adult mortality using simple questions asked during a census or survey.
Brass’s major contributions to demography
i. Indirect estimation of adult mortality

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Brass developed a method of estimating adult mortality by asking people in a census or survey
whether their father or mother are still alive (or if they had died). The collected data can then be
used to calculate the probability of survival or dying by age for adults. This method is called the
Orphanhood Method.
ii. Indirect estimation of child mortality
Brass developed a formula for estimating child mortality using the mean number of children ever
born to women who are still in their childbearing ages. In order to use this method, the census or
survey need to include a question on how many children a woman who is still in her childbearing age
has ever had and how many were still surviving. The data can then be used to get proportion of
children dead or alive by the mother’s age. A series of calculations using model life tables are then
done to estimate under five mortality over a period of time. This method is today still used by
developing countries and the United Nations to estimate infant and child mortality.
iii. The P/F Ratio Method
Brass showed that the ratio of average parity by age against cumulated current fertility by age can
be used to derive estimates of fertility which are less biased compared to direct calculation of
fertility using collected data. The method can also be used as a diagnostic tool to check the accuracy
of data on births and deaths among children collected in a census or survey.
iv. Logit Model Life Tables
In 1974 William Brass developed new model lifetables called the Brass Relational Logit Models using
the equation of a straight line. One simply needs to find the intercept (alpha) and slope (beta) using
two or more mortality data points (actual deaths or the probability of dying). Once the intercept and
slope are found, one can then generate a whole life table for a population with incomplete data on
mortality using a logit transformation of life table survivors (lx).
Brass’s method effectively declared Coale and Demeny’s model lifetables redundant. Instead of
checking through the tables for matching mortality data, one can simply generate a new lifetable
(from the lx column) using available data on deaths by age. At minimum, one only needs one data
point among the young population and another data point among adult ages.
v. Indirect estimation of population size and vital events
With the sponsorship of the United Nations, Brass and other Demographers and Mathematicians like
Ansley Coale developed indirect methods of estimating population size and vital events like births
and deaths. This was necessitated mainly by two factors:
 Lack of functional vital registration systems (VRS): Many developing countries do not have
fully functioning VRS used to collect or register vital events as they occur. This means that
apart from conducting a census, there was no any other way of knowing the number of
births and deaths occurring in a population.
 Long census interval: Many countries conduct their censuses every after 10 years. In the
absence of a fully functioning VRS, it means that data on births and deaths would not be
known until the next census.
It thus, became necessary to develop indirect methods of estimating births and deaths occurring in a
population as well as population size itself. These indirect methods were compiled by the UN in a
book called Indirect Techniques for Demographic Estimation. The book has been revised several
times since its first edition. The most popular and last version is called Manual X which was
published in 1984. In 2013, building on Manual X, a group of six Demographers and Mathematicians

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under the sponsorship of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population published a
book called ‘Tools for Demographic Estimation.’ The book provides comprehensive mathematical
methods for indirect estimation of births, deaths and migration events in a given population
provided some incomplete records of deaths, births or migration are available.
Wilhelm Lexis
 He is a demographer of the late 1800s. He inverted what is now called a Lexis diagram.
 The Lexi diagram is a simple visual display which helps us keep track of the relationships
between chronological time t and age x.
 It is basically an X and Y diagram, where the horizontal axis represents chronological
time, that is, calendar time, and the vertical axis represents a person’s age.
 The Lexis diagram is a very important invention in demography as it helps us perform both
period and cohort analyses of demographic events such as birth and death.
 Below is an example of a Lexi diagram depicting measurement of both cohort and
period data.
 Cohort data is represented diagonally since the same population is followed over a
period of time. As years move to the right, age also increases hence making a
diagonal line.
 Period data is represented by a vertical line because it depicts people of different
ages at a single point in time.

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