|
Demography is the statistical study of populations, including of human beings. As a very general science, it can analyze any kind of dynamic living population, i.e., one that changes over time or space (see population dynamics). Demography encompasses the study of the size, structure, and distribution of these populations, and spatial and/or temporal changes in them in response to time, birth, migration, ageing, and death. Based on the demographic research of the earth, earth’s population up to the year 2050 and 2100 can be estimated by the demographers.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://demographicpartitions.org/science-population-determines-population-change/ )〕 ''Demo-'' from Ancient Greek δῆμος ''dēmos'', means "the people" and ''-graphy'' from γράφω ''graphō'', implies writing, description or measurement.〔See (for etymology (origins) of demography ).〕 Demographics are quantifiable characteristics of a given population. Demographic analysis can cover whole societies, or groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion and ethnicity. Educational institutions usually treat demography as a field of sociology, though there are a number of independent demography departments.〔UC Berkeley Demography department website. http://demog.berkeley.edu/department/index.shtml〕 Formal demography limits its object of study to the measurement of population processes, while the broader field of social demography or population studies also analyzes the relationships between economic, social, cultural and biological processes influencing a population.〔Andrew Hinde ''Demographic Methods'' Ch. 1 ISBN 0-340-71892-7〕 ==History== Demographic thoughts can be traced back to antiquity, and are present in many civilisations and cultures, like Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, India and China.〔(S.C.Srivastava,''Studies in Demography'',p.39-41 )〕 In ancient Greece, this can be found in the writings of Herodotus, Thucidides, Hippocrates, Epicurus, Protagoras, Polus, Plato and Aristotle.〔 In Rome, writers and philosophers like Cicero, Seneca, Pliny the elder, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Cato and Collumella also expressed important ideas on this ground.〔 In the Middle ages, Christian thinkers devoted much time in refuting the Classical ideas on demography. Important contributors to the field were William of Conches,〔Peter Biller,''The measure of multitude: Population in medieval thought''().〕 Bartholomew of Lucca,〔 William of Auvergne,〔 William of Pagula,〔 and Ibn Khaldun.〔See, e.g., Andrey Korotayev, Artemy Malkov, & Daria Khaltourina (2006). ''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth''. Moscow: URSS, ISBN 5-484-00414-4.〕 One of the earliest demographic studies in the modern period was ''Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality'' (1662) by John Graunt, which contains a primitive form of life table. Among the study's findings were that one third of the children in London died before their sixteenth birthday. Mathematicians, such as Edmond Halley, developed the life table as the basis for life insurance mathematics. Richard Price was credited with the first textbook on life contingencies published in 1771,〔“Our Yesterdays: the History of the Actuarial Profession in North America, 1809-1979,” by E.J. (Jack) Moorhead, FSA, ( 1/23/10 – 2/21/04), published by the Society of Actuaries as part of the profession’s centennial celebration in 1989.〕 followed later by Augustus de Morgan, ‘On the Application of Probabilities to Life Contingencies’ (1838).〔The History of Insurance, Vol 3, Edited by David Jenkins and Takau Yoneyama (1 85196 527 0): 8 Volume Set: ( 2000) Availability: Japan: Kinokuniya).〕 At the end of the 18th century, Thomas Malthus concluded that, if unchecked, populations would be subject to exponential growth. He feared that population growth would tend to outstrip growth in food production, leading to ever-increasing famine and poverty (see Malthusian catastrophe). He is seen as the intellectual father of ideas of overpopulation and the limits to growth. Later, more sophisticated and realistic models were presented by Benjamin Gompertz and Verhulst. The period 1860-1910 can be characterized as a period of transition wherein demography emerged from statistics as a separate field of interest. This period included a panoply of international ‘great demographers’ like Adolphe Quételet (1796–1874), William Farr (1807–1883), Louis-Adolphe Bertillon (1821–1883) and his son Jacques (1851–1922), Joseph Körösi (1844–1906), Anders Nicolas Kaier (1838–1919), Richard Böckh (1824–1907), Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), Wilhelm Lexis (1837–1914) and Luigi Bodio (1840–1920) contributed to the development of demography and to the toolkit of methods and techniques of demographic analysis.〔de Gans, Henk and Frans van Poppel (2000) Contributions from the margins. Dutch statisticians, actuaries and medical doctors and the methods of demography in the time of Wilhelm Lexis. Workshop on ‘Lexis in Context: German and Eastern& Northern European Contributions to Demography 1860-1910’ at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock , August 28 and 29, 2000.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Demography」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|