This comprehensive handbook provides an overview and update of the issues, theories, processes, and applications of the social science of population studies. The volume's 30 chapters cover the full range of conceptual, empirical, disciplinary, and applied approaches to the study of demographic phenomena. This book is the first effort to assess the entire field since Hauser and Duncan's 1959 classic, The Study of Population. The chapter authors are among the leading contributors to demographic scholarship over the past four decades. They represent a variety of disciplines and theoretical perspectives as well as interests in both basic and applied research.
The Handbook of Population is organized for classroom as well as reference use. It is divided into four sections – Population Structure, Population Processes, Population and the Social Sciences, and Applied Demography – and includes both an Introduction and an Epilogue by the editors. Part I, Population Structure, contains chapters on population size and growth, age and sex composition, marriage and family structure, and demographic analyses of gender, aging, race and ethnicity, and the labor force. Part II is focused on population processes, and includes chapters on fertility, infant and adult mortality, internal and international migration, and the demography of social stratification. Part III reflects the growing multidisciplinary nature of demography. Finally, Part IV recognizes the varied practical applications of demographic perspectives and data to national and global issues and problems.
The chapter authors in this volume are among the leading contributors to demographic scholarship over the past four decades, representing a variety of disciplines and theoretical perspectives, as well as interests in both basic and applied research.
From the reviews:
"A systematic appraisal of the field of demography is long overdue. It has been almost five decades since Philip Hauser and Otis Dudley Duncan published their classic The Study of Population. The volume naturally covers the latest developments in time-honored fields such as age and sex, marriage and family, mortality, fertility, and both internal and international migration. It also inlcudes new material on subjects that did not even exist at the time of the last survey, including biodemography, anthropological demography, and political demography. This comprehensive review of 50 years of progress in theoretical and empirical knowledge confirms that demography is indeed a cumulative science." (Douglas S. Massey, Princeton)
"The Handbook of Population is a worthy successor to the 1959 publication of The Study of Population edited by Hauser and Duncan. The editors did a remarkable job of putting together an excellent outline that covers every topic within Demography. The editors did an even more remarkable job in gathering such talented scholars to write each chapter. Together they mesh into what will soon become ou 'bible.' It should be in every college library and should be on every demographer's desk." (Leon Bouvier, Old Dominion University)
