demography

[dih-mog-ruh-fee]

noun

1. the science of vital and social statistics, as of the births, deaths, diseases, marriages, etc., of populations.

demography

/ dɪˈmɒɡrəfɪ /

noun

1. the scientific study of human populations, esp with reference to their size, structure, and distribution

demography

1. The quantitative study of human populations. Demographers study subjects such as the geographical distribution of people, birth and death rates, socioeconomic status, and age and sex distributions in order to identify the influences on population growth, structure, and development.

Other Word Forms

• demographer noun
• demographist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of demography¹

First recorded in 1875–80; demo- + -graphy

Word History and Origins

Origin of demography¹

C19: from French démographie, from Greek dēmos the populace; see _-graphy

Example Sentences

“I don’t understand how illuminating them is going to be advantageous to Republicans,” said Jennifer Van Hook, a sociology and demography professor at Pennsylvania State University.

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“No city has ever been produced by such an extraordinary mixture of geography, climate, economics, demography, mechanics and culture,” said Reyner Banham, the British architectural historian who wrote about Los Angeles a half-century ago.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The paper is not only a critical analysis of blue zones, but a plea against the whole field of extreme-age demography.

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Mike Madrid, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who specialises in Latino voting trends, told the BBC that the problem with “demography is destiny” was that it risked treating all non-white Americans as an “aggrieved racial minority”.

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Declining fertility rates are not just about people delaying parenthood, but about a growing trend of people not having children, says Brienna Perelli-Harris, professor of demography at the University of Southampton.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• anthropology