Journal of Geology & Geophysics
Open Access

Demography

Demography (from prefix demo- from Ancient Greek δῆμος dÄ“mos meaning "the people", and -graphy from γράφω graphō, ies "writing, description or measurement is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.

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. Based on the demographic research of the earth, earth's population up to the year 2050 and 2100 can be estimated by demographers.

Formal demography limits its object of study to the measurement of population processes, while the broader field of social demography or population studies also analyses the relationships between economic, social, cultural, and biological processes influencing a population

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,followed later by Augustus de Morgan, ‘On the Application of Probabilities to Life Contingencies’ (1838).

In 1755, Benjamin Franklin published his essay Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc., projecting exponential growth in British colonies. His work influenced Thomas Robert Malthus, who, writing at the end of the 18th century, feared that, if unchecked, population growth would tend to outstrip growth in food production, leading to ever-increasing famine and poverty (see Malthusian catastrophe). Malthus 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.