Demography

In broader sense, the statistical study of human population is referred to as demography. This same methodology can be applied to any population which tends to change over time or space. The structure and size of the population is taken into consideration by this study. It mainly concentrates on the size, structure and the distribution of the population. It also accounts the temporal and spatial changes that take in effect to the birth, aging, migration and death of a nation.

Demography falls under sociology and can be applied to any society or group which are categorized under religion, ethnicity, education, and nationality. Talking about the format demography, it restricts itself in the measurement of the population where the social demography population also goes deep into the relationships between the cultural, biological, social and economical process and the population.

The data collection method is categorized in to two. They are Direct and indirect data collections. The vital statistics registries play a vital role in the direct data collection. These statistics registries with a collection of all births and deaths including the changes in the legal status that covers the migrations, marriages and divorces of a nation forms the basis of the Direct data collection. Some developed countries United States has got good registry statistics and has been the best method for estimating the birth and the death of the people.

A good example for direct collection of demographic data is the census. The national government usually conducts the census attempting to enumerate each and every individual of the country. These censuses occur once in ten years and cannot give up to date information about the birth and death rate of country. One good thing about census is that it does more than just counting the people. It also gathers information about the household, families, literacy, education, employment, occupation status, and also geographical location.  Census can also give information about the migration of the people explaining their language, religion and nationality.

The indirect method of demography on the other hand is quite different and is demanded in countries which don’t have the complete data. This has been practiced in most of the developing countries. Sister method which is a stream of this method involves the researcher to ask the women how may they have and in that how many sisters have died, and what is the age of their death and also how many sister had children. These data would help the researcher to estimate indirectly the birth and death rates.

Questions:

• What is demography?
• How is the indirect method of demography processed?