Population and Society graduate seminar syllabus

A modern dance troupe performing an interpretive dance on the theme ‘Population and Society’ (Dall-E)

The last two weeks aren’t done yet, but here’s most of my grad seminar this semester. I haven’t taught this in about 20 years. Some of this comes from Feinian Chen, who previously taught this at Maryland. Sorry only some readings have links and some are paywalled.

Introduction

The course is designed as a basic graduate level introduction to social demography. We will use sociology to facilitate the understanding of the interaction between social and demographic forces. We start with an introduction to basic concepts and data issues in demography. We then cover the study of three basic population processes: fertility, mortality and migration. Other selected topics include family demography, population composition and structure, population aging, and the intersection among population, policy, and environment.

Schedule

* Indicates recommended for additional information, not required readings.

Week 1: Introduction and overview

• Mather, Mark, Linda A. Jacobsen, and Paola Scommegna. 2021. “Population: An Introduction to Demography,” Population Bulletin 75(1).
• Billari, Francesco C. 2015. “Integrating Macro- and Micro-Level Approaches in the Explanation of Population Change.” Population Studies 69(sup1):S11–20. doi: 10.1080/00324728.2015.1009712.

Week 2: Data, concepts, and tools

• Mathenge, Gloria, Petra Nahmias, Tanja Sejersen, and Afsaneh Tazdani. 2020. “Population Registers: A Key Resource for Producing Vital Statistics.” Stats Brief 26. UNESCAP.
• Palmore, J. A., & Gardner, R. W. (1983). Chapter 1: Rates, Ratios, Percentages, and Probabilities. in Measuring Mortality, Fertility, and Natural Increase (pp.1-7). East-West Population Center. [you don’t have to do the exercise]
• Coale, Ansley J. 1964. “How a Population Ages or Grows Younger.” In Ronald Freedman (ed.) 1964. Population: The Vital Revolution. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books. As updated by PN Cohen (2024). (Ansley Coale discusses this article here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek3nc7XtEOU.)
• Van Hook, Jennifer, Anne Morse, Randy Capps, and Julia Gelatt. 2021. “Uncertainty About the Size of the Unauthorized Foreign-Born Population in the United States.” Demography 58(6):2315–36. doi: 10.1215/00703370-9491801.
• * Bryan, T., & Heuser, R. (2004). Chapter 3: Collection and Processing of Demographic Data. in J. S. Siegel and D. A. Swanson (Eds.), The Methods and Materials of Demography (2nd Edition) (pp. 43-63). San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press.

Week 3: Population Composition and Structure: Sex and Gender

• Westbrook, Laurel, and Aliya Saperstein. 2015. “New Categories Are Not Enough: Rethinking the Measurement of Sex and Gender in Social Surveys.” Gender & Society 29(4):534–60. doi: 10.1177/0891243215584758.
• Chao, Fengqing, Patrick Gerland, Alex R. Cook, and Leontine Alkema. 2019. “Systematic Assessment of the Sex Ratio at Birth for All Countries and Estimation of National Imbalances and Regional Reference Levels.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(19):9303–11. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1812593116.
• Kolk, Martin, and Karim Jebari. 2022. “Sex Selection for Daughters: Demographic Consequences of Female-Biased Sex Ratios.” Population Research and Policy Review 41(4):1619–39. doi: 10.1007/s11113-022-09710-w.
• * Lagos, Danya. 2018. “Looking at Population Health Beyond ‘Male’ and ‘Female’: Implications of Transgender Identity and Gender Nonconformity for Population Health.” Demography 55(6):2097–2117. doi:10.1007/s13524-018-0714-3.
• * Davis, Heath Fogg. 2018. Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter? NYU Press.

Week 4: Population Composition and Structure: Race and Ethnicity

• Johnson, Sandra. 2020. A Changing Nation: Population Projections under Alternative Immigration Scenarios. P25-1146. US Department of Commerce, US Census Bureau. https://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1146.pdf
• Alba, Richard. 2020. The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream. Princeton University Press. Chapter 4: “The Demographic Data System and the Surge of Young Americans from Mixed Family Backgrounds.”
• Agadjanian, Alexander. 2022. “How Many Americans Change Their Racial Identification over Time?” Socius 8:23780231221098547. doi: 10.1177/23780231221098547.
• Prewitt, Kenneth. 2018. “The Census Race Classification: Is It Doing Its Job?” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 677(1):8–24. doi: 10.1177/0002716218756629.

Week 5: Mortality transitions

• Gutin, Iliya, and Robert A. Hummer. 2021. “Social Inequality and the Future of US Life Expectancy.” Annual Review of Sociology 47(1):501–20. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-072320-100249.
• Santosa, Ailiana, Stig Wall, Edward Fottrell, Ulf Högberg, and Peter Byass. 2014. “The Development and Experience of Epidemiological Transition Theory over Four Decades: A Systematic Review.” Global Health Action 7(1):23574. doi: 10.3402/gha.v7.23574.
• Vaupel, James W., Francisco Villavicencio, and Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher. 2021. “Demographic Perspectives on the Rise of Longevity.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(9):e2019536118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2019536118.
• Dummer, Trevor J. B., and Ian G. Cook. 2008. “Health in China and India: A Cross-Country Comparison in a Context of Rapid Globalisation.” Social Science & Medicine 67(4):590–605. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.04.019.
• * Cutler, David, and Grant Miller. 2005. “The Role of Public Health Improvements in Health Advances: The Twentieth-Century United States.” Demography 42(1):1–22. doi: 10.1353/dem.2005.0002.
• * Sidel, Victor W. 1972. “The Barefoot Doctors of the People’s Republic of China.” New England Journal of Medicine 286:1292–1300. doi: 10.1056/NEJM197206152862404.
• * Preston, Samuel H., and Haidong Wang. 2006. “Sex Mortality Differences in The United States: The Role of Cohort Smoking Patterns.” Demography 43(4):631–46. doi: 10.1353/dem.2006.0037.
• * Polizzi, Antonino, and Jennifer Beam Dowd. 2024. “Working-Age Mortality Is Still an Important Driver of Stagnating Life Expectancy in the United States.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(4):e2318276121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2318276121.

Week 6, March 4: Mortality Differentials

• Case, Anne, and Angus Deaton. 2015. “Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife among White Non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st Century.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112(49):15078–83. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1518393112.
• Montez, Jennifer Karas, Jason Beckfield, Julene Kemp Cooney, Jacob M. Grumbach, Mark D. Hayward, Huseyin Zeyd Koytak, Steven H. Woolf, and Anna Zajacova. 2020. “US State Policies, Politics, and Life Expectancy.” The Milbank Quarterly 98(3):668–99. doi: 10.1111/1468-0009.12469.
• Sasson, Isaac. 2016. “Trends in Life Expectancy and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment: United States, 1990–2010.” Demography 53(2):269–93. doi: 10.1007/s13524-015-0453-7.
• Paglino, Eugenio, and Irma T. Elo. 2024. “Immigrant Mortality Advantage in the United States during the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Demographic Research 50:185–204.
• * Van Hook, Jennifer, Michelle L. Frisco, and Carlyn E. Graham. 2020. “Signs of the End of the Paradox? Cohort Shifts in Smoking and Obesity and the Hispanic Life Expectancy Advantage.” Sociological Science 7:391–414. doi: 10.15195/v7.a16.

Week 7: Fertility Transitions

• Mason, Karen Oppenheim. 1997. “Explaining Fertility Transitions.” Demography 34(4):443–54. doi: 10.2307/3038299.
• McDonald, Peter. 2000. “Gender Equity in Theories of Fertility Transition.” Population and Development Review 26(3):427–39. doi: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2000.00427.x.
• Raybould, Alyce, and Rebecca Sear. 2021. “Children of the (Gender) Revolution: A Theoretical and Empirical Synthesis of How Gendered Division of Labour Influences Fertility.” Population Studies 75(2):169–90. doi: 10.1080/00324728.2020.1851748.

Week 8: Fertility Trends and Differentials: USA

• Torres, Andrés F. Castro, and Emilio Parrado. 2022. “Nativity Differentials in First Births in the United States: Patterns by Race and Ethnicity.” Demographic Research 46:37–64.
• Cohen, Philip N. 2021. “Hard Times and Falling Fertility in the United States.” SocArXiv. July 1. doi:10.31235/osf.io/pjf3n.
• Lindberg, Laura D., and Leslie M. Kantor. 2022. “Adolescents’ Receipt of Sex Education in a Nationally Representative Sample, 2011–2019.” Journal of Adolescent Health 70(2):290–97. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.08.027.
• Mark, Nicholas D. E., and Lawrence L. Wu. 2022. “More Comprehensive Sex Education Reduced Teen Births: Quasi-Experimental Evidence.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119(8):e2113144119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2113144119.
• * Wu, Lawrence L., and Nicholas D. E. Mark. 2023. “Is US Fertility Now Below Replacement? Evidence from Period vs. Cohort Trends.” Population Research and Policy Review 42(5):76. doi: 10.1007/s11113-023-09821-y.

Week 9, April 1: Fertility Trends and Differentials: World / East Asia

• Casterline, John B., and Laila O. El-Zeini. 2022. “Multiple Perspectives on Recent Trends in Unwanted Fertility in Low-and Middle-Income Countries.” Demography 59(1):371–88.
• Cheng, Yen-hsin Alice. 2020. “Ultra-Low Fertility in East Asia: Confucianism and Its Discontents.” Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 18:83–120.
• Cai, Yong, and Wang Feng. 2021. “The Social and Sociological Consequences of China’s One-Child Policy.” Annual Review of Sociology 47(1):587–606. doi: 10.1146/annurev-soc-090220-032839.
• * Raymo, James M., Hyunjoon Park, and Jia Yu. 2023. “Diverging Destinies in East Asia.” Annual Review of Sociology 49(1):443–63. doi: 10.1146/annurev-soc-020321-032642.
• * Huang, Wei, Xiaoyan Lei, and Ang Sun. 2021. “Fertility Restrictions and Life Cycle Outcomes: Evidence from the One-Child Policy in China.” Review of Economics and Statistics 103(4):694–710. doi: 10.1162/rest_a_00921.

Week 10, April 8: Migration

• Héran, François. 2022. “Demography and Migration: The Wildcard in Population Dynamics.” Pp. 78–129 in Migration Theory, edited by C. B. Brettell and J. F. Hollifield. Routledge.
• Feliciano, Cynthia. 2020. “Immigrant Selectivity Effects on Health, Labor Market, and Educational Outcomes.” Annual Review of Sociology 46(1):315–34. doi: 10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054639.
• Parr, Nick. 2023. “Immigration and the Prospects for Long-Run Population Decreases in European Countries.” Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 21(1):1–29.
• Moise, Alexandru D., James Dennison, and Hanspeter Kriesi. 2024. “European Attitudes to Refugees after the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.” West European Politics 47(2):356–81. doi: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2229688.
• * Crossette, Barbara. 2000. “The World: It’s the American Way; Europe Stares at a Future Built by Immigrants.” The New York Times, January 2. 

Week 11: Family Demography – Kinship

• Manning, Wendy D., Krista K. Westrick-Payne, and Gary J. Gates. 2022. “Cohabitation and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples in the 2019 ACS and CPS: A Research Note.” Demography 59(5):1595–1605. doi: 10.1215/00703370-10181474.
• Cherlin, Andrew J. 2023. “Evolutionary Influences on Assistance to Kin: Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.” Sociological Science 10:964–88. doi: 10.15195/v10.a34.
• More readings

Week 12, April 22: Family Demography II – Time Use

• Rubiano Matulevich, Eliana Carolina and Viollaz, Mariana, Gender Differences in Time Use: Allocating Time between the Market and the Household (August 14, 2019). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 8981, Available at SSRN.
• Colen, C. G., Drotning, K. J., Sayer, L. C., & Link, B. (2024). “A Matter of Time: Racialized Time and the Production of Health Disparities.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 65(1), 126-140. doi:10.1177/00221465231182377.
• Cha, Y. and Park, H. (2021), “Converging Educational Differences in Parents’ Time Use in Developmental Child Care.” J. Marriage Fam, 83: 769-785. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12720.
• Gao, M. G. (2023). “Converging trends in developmental child care time by fathers’ education? Comment on Cha and Park (2021).” Journal of Marriage and Family, 85(2), 603–615. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12889.