The study of population is called demography.
Demography is the science of populations. Demographers seek to understand population dynamics by investigating three main demographic processes: birth, migration, and aging (including death). All three of these processes contribute to changes in populations, including how people inhabit the earth, form nations and societies, and develop culture. While most of the discipline’s research focuses on humans, the MPIDR is also committed to the specialized field of biodemography.
Today, there is growing interest among the public in demography, as “demographic change” has become the subject of political debates in many developed countries. Most of these countries have birth rates below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, and, at the same time, life expectancy has been rising considerably and continues to rise – a development sometimes called “the aging of societies.”
While demography cannot offer political advice on how to tackle demographic change, demographers seek to describe the phenomena related to this change, and to understand their causes. Using reliable data and the statistical processing of these data, modern demographic research embraces many scientific disciplines, including mathematics, economics and other social sciences, geography or biology.