Demographics

DEMOGRAPHY IS THE STUDY of population characteristics conducted by population experts (demographers). Demography is as old as the first counting of the males available as warriors conducted by ancient tribal leaders or kings. In modern times it has advanced greatly with the development of statistical tools for the counting and analyzing of populations.

Demography, as the study of population characteristics, includes censuses conducted by modern governments and other agencies. Depending upon the demographic features sought, a demographic study can identify and report information on the age, death rates, diseases, disease distributions, infection rates, sex, sexual orientation, fertility rates, family size, health, household size, income, occupation, spending patterns, religion, nationality, race, ethnic characteristics, and other features.

Additional aspects of population studies can include such features as access to transportation, or the mobility of people in terms of their travel time to work, or the number of vehicles available. Other features of a population can include educational attainment, home ownership, jobs—either inside or outside of the home—employing various members of the household, the social status of different groups, and family as an atomic unit or as an extended unit.

Demographic studies are conducted by numerous demographers. Governments conduct periodic censuses [Page 246]as well as records of vital statistics such as birth, death, and other records. Sociologists use demographics to discuss social groups. In political science public opinion polls are used to measure a population's political view. In marketing research and consumer behavior research the incomes and other economic features of a population will be central.

Demographic studies not only count population characteristics but measure these over time in order to project trends in population changes. For example the growth, decline, aging, movements, rising and falling of death rates, migrations both internally in a country and externally, and life expectancy are just a few of the features of a population that can be studied dynamically. With the use of statistical techniques it is possible to use small, randomly chosen representative samples to describe the characteristics of a population. Other statistical techniques can be used to make inferences about populations.

Population studies can be graphed to show any number of features with a wide variety of graphs. These graphs can be used to show such things as behavior characteristics or psychographic characteristics such as mental health. The data can also be combined with maps to show the geographic distribution of population demographics.

Many countries have agencies that collect numerous statistics on populations. In the United States, the Census Bureau is in charge of conducting the constitutionally mandated decennial census. By law every person must be counted, although a small percentage of people who are unavailable, moving, or want to avoid all contact with the government are not counted.

The census in the United States also gathers data on the number of people in households, the nature of their housing, their incomes, educational levels, ethnicity, languages, and other characteristics. The results are by law kept restricted to only the Census Bureau and are published only as aggregate numbers. After a number of decades the information may be opened to the public.

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