Demography - American Sociological Association

flowed through time. Were your family members demographic conformists, pioneers, or
nonconformists? How did they fit into the Depression-era cohorts, the Baby Boom Cohorts, and
the Baby Bust and Baby Boomlet cohorts? What do you expect to be your own vital statistics-age
at marriage, number of children ever born, migration pattern, education, occupation, income,
and age at and cause of death?
(2) Demographic Profile
Pick a country (not the United States) that you are interested in or familiar with. For ideas,
consult your Population Reference Bureau "World Population Data Sheet" or visit the
International Database of the U.S. Bureau of the Census at: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www. It
is important for you to choose a country as soon as possible so that you can begin searching for
data sources. To produce an effective profile, the following data should be available for two
different dates:
--total population by age and sex
--births by age of mother
--deaths by age and sex
--percent of the population living in cities
These data are most accessible in the United Nations Demographic Yearbooks in the library.
Some of the data can be accessed electronically: http://twig.sdsu.edu/demoybk/.
Plus, you will want to do some mapping of the region that you are studying. You can do this in
ArcGIS or ArcView, or you may use Microsoft Encarta or other Atlases on your computer. Of
course, you can always photocopy paper maps.
The objectives of the project are to:
--build a demographic profile of a particular country;
--analyze changes over time in the demography of the country under study;
--relate demographic changes to broader social changes that are occurring in that country;
--attempt to develop a viable, culturally relevant population policy for that country; &
(optionally)
--compare that demographic profile with another country such as the United States.
Your assignment is to write a 12-15 page (typed, double-spaced) paper using the questions below
as guidelines. It is not necessary for you to address every question I have raised. Some may be
unanswerable or irrelevant for your country and you may think of others that seem better. In
deciding which issues to focus upon, use your own judgment or consult with me. The guidelines
for organizing your demographic profile in conjunction with the reading in Weeks, Population,
Eighth Edition, are as follows:
Chapter 1 Describe the history of population growth over time, leading to the current
demographic situation. What is the current population, and how has the population grown over
time? What is the current rate of growth? And what is the implied doubling time? What are the
crude birth and death rates, the rate of natural increase, the incidence of internal migration, and
the rate of international in- or out-migration?
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