Sociology and Demography

Terms offered: Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2018 Second 6 Week Session
This course provides an accessible introduction to the social science of demography. The course is organized around cases in which population issues raise policy or ethical dilemmas (example: China's one child policy). Through these cases, students will learn how demographers use models and data to acquire knowledge about population. Throughout the course, students will also learn to read, interpret, evaluate, and produce tabular and graphical representations of population data.
Fundamentals of Population Science: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This course will cover the small but important part of the rich history human migration that deals with the population of the United
States--focusing on the 20th and 21st Centuries. We will use the tools of DS8 to answer specific questions that relate to the themes
of this course:
(1) Why do people migrate?
(2) Is immigration good or bad for receiving (and sending) countries?
(3) How do immigrants adapt and how do societies change in response?
In addition to scientific questions, this course will also address the demographic and political history of immigration in the US --
an understanding  of which is crucial for understanding  both the broad contours of US history and the particular situation in which
we find ourselves today.

Immigration: What do the data tell us?: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Undergraduate research by small groups.
Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2023
Measures and methods of Demography. Life tables, fertility and nuptiality measures, age pyramids, population projection, measures of fertility control.
Introduction to Population Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2021
Introduction to population issues and the field of demography, with emphasis on historical patterns of population growth and change during the industrial era. Topics covered include the demographic transition, resource issues, economic development, the environment, population control, family planning, birth control, family and gender, aging, intergenerational transfers, and international migration.
Sex, Death, and Data: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Fundamentals of demographic analysis of health and mortality with a special focus on global public health challenges including those induced by climate change. Class will focus on essential concepts from demography and public health, global and historical shifts in mortality and morbidity patterns, and the determinants of health and mortality over the life course, including environmental determinants. Students’ will develop their own research project related to health and mortality using real-world demographic data. Students will learn to interpret, construct, and calculate common demographic and public health indicators, and will develop a basic toolkit for analyzing health and mortality data.
Demography of Deaths, Diseases, and Disasters: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
The history of the United States is the history of migration. The course covers the evolution of the American population from about 20,000 BC with the goal of understanding the interdependent roles of history and demography. As an American cultures class, special attention is given to the experiences of 18th- and 19th-century African and European immigrants and 20th- and 21st-century Asian and Latin American immigrants. Two substantial laboratory assignments; facility with a spreadsheet program is assumed.
The American Immigrant Experience: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
Special topics in demography. Topics may include the demography of specific world regions, race and ethnicity, population and policy, and population and environment and similiar specialized or new topics in the field of demography will be covered.
Special Topics in Demography: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Special topics in demography. Topics may include any subject in demography and may be specific world regions, race and ethnicity, population and policy, and population and environment and similar specialized or new topics in the field of demography will be covered. Designed primarily to permit instructors to teach a current relevant topic that may be focused and specialized or a topic with broad appeal. Topics change each summer.
Summer Special Topics in Demography: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2015
Despite our astonishing demographic success as a species, humans are haunted by the idea of apocalyptic demise. This course explores scientific and cultural narratives of population catastrophe particularly as presented in film. Noah's flood; nuclear annihilation; overpopulation; and climate change all raise the question: Does human nature carry within it the seeds of our inevitable destruction? In this course, we will grapple with both the science and the art in which this question is embedded.
Population Apocalypse in Film and Science: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2007
Examination of the impact of policies of state intervention and public benefit programs on poor children and families. Introduction to child and family policy, and study of specific issue areas, such as income transfer programs, housing, health care, and child abuse.
Impact of Government Policies on Poor Children and Families: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2012, Fall 2008, Spring 2005
How are families and households organized around the world? Which aspects of household and family vary, and which are constant? What are the relationships between household and family on the one hand and the political, economic, or broad social patterns on the other? This course examines all of these questions, taking historical and contemporary examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Family and Household in Comparative Perspective: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
A general introduction to economic demography, addressing the following kinds of questions: What are the economic consequences of immigration to the U.S.? Will industrial nations be able to afford the health and pension costs of the aging populations? How has the size of the baby boom affected its economic well being? Why has fertility been high in Third World countries? In industrial countries, why is marriage postponed, divorce high, fertility so low, and extramarital fertility rising? What are the economic and environmental consequences of rapid population growth?
Economic Demography: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2023
The science of social networks focuses on measuring, modeling, and understanding the different ways that people are connected to one another. We will use a broad toolkit of theories and methods drawn from the social, natural, and mathematical sciences to learn what a social network is, to understand how to work with social network data, and to illustrate some of the ways that social networks can be useful in theory and in practice. We will see that network ideas are powerful enough to be used everywhere from UNAIDS, where network models help epidemiologists prevent the spread of HIV, to Silicon Valley, where data scientists use network ideas to build products that enable people all across the globe to connect with one another.

Social Networks: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Undergraduate research by small groups. Enrollment is restricted by regulations governing 198 courses.
Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Summer 2019, Fall 2018
Supervised independent study and research.
Supervised Independent Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course offers an intensive introduction to the history of population thought in Europe and the United States through the close reading and contextualization of selected classic texts, including Graunt, Malthus, and Quetelet.
Required of graduate students in the M.A. or Ph.D. program in Demography.

Fundamentals of Population Thought: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Population models, multiple decrement life tables, hazard functions, stable population theory, projection matrices, projection programs, population waves, dual system estimation, computer-based exercises and simulations. Required course for Demography M.A. and Ph.D. students.
Demographic Methods: Rates and Structures: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2013, Spring 2012
This course is designed to provide an overview of quantitative techniques commonly used in demography, sociology, economics, and other social sciences. Methods are described in both words and formulas, and students are encouraged to learn to move freely between verbal and mathematical representations of data.
Advanced Demographic Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2021, Fall 2019
An introductory course for first year Demography graduate students in the use of the Demography laboratory. Covers Unix based tools for manipulating computer programs and data files, and the R, SPlus, and SAS statistical packages. The course introduces the proportional hazard model and methods of estimating it. The final project for this course is use of the 1995 Current Population Survey (fertility supplement) to compute Total Fertility Rates for the U.S.
Practical Computer Applications for Demographic Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2010, Spring 2009, Spring 2008
The goals of this course are 1) to familiarize graduate students with active research projects in Demography and 2) to improve skills in R and Stata. Topics covered include demographic micro-simulation with SOCSIM, the Human Mortality Database, stochastic simulation/forecasting, GIS for Demographers, and mortality forecasting. Two-thirds of class time will be spent in the computer laboratory. Students will present results.
Current Research Topics in Demography: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2018, Spring 2013
This course offers a critical, graduate-level introduction to the social science of reproduction, drawing especially on models and theories from demography, sociology, and anthropology. Among the topics are parity specific control and the calculus of conscious choice, below-replacement fertility, and the political economy of stratified reproduction.
Human Fertility: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2011, Spring 2009
Measurement of mortality by age and cause. Traditional, transitional, and modern mortality patterns in European and non-European areas. Current trends and differentials by age, sex, race, occupation and marital status. Consequences of mortality declines for fertility change and development.
Human Mortality: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2006, Spring 2004, Spring 2002
Course considers demographic and economic aspects of population aging.
Aging: Economic and Demographic Aspects: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2013, Spring 2011, Spring 2000
Human populations analyzed from the stand point of their spatial distribution and movement. Special attention to rural-urban migration, metropolitan structure, inter-regional movement, and demographic aspects of land-use, the collection and analysis of emigration and immigration data and statistics, migration policies.
Human Migration: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Special topics in demography, such as anthropological and evolutionary approaches, kinship and family structure, race and ethnicity, and similar specialized or new topics in the field of demography will be covered. Seminar will be offered according to student demand.
Special Topics in Demography Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2019, Spring 2015
Economic consequences of demographic change in developing and developed countries including capital formation, labor markets, and intergenerational transfers. Economic determinants of fertility, mortality and migration.
Economic Demography: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
This course provides a broad introduction to the empirical and theoretical study of social networks. We will cover classic and contemporary studies, beginning with fundamental definitions and models, and then moving through a range of topics, including models of network formation and structure (homophily, foci, communities); dynamic processes on networks (contagion, influence, and disease models); collaborative networks; personal networks; online networks; and network sampling and data collection. The course material is intended to be of interest to students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including demography, sociology, statistics, computer science, and related fields.
Social Networks: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Fall 2018
Problems in data acquisition, analysis, and presentation of technical demographic research. Required of graduate students in the Ph.D. program in Demography.
Advanced Research Techniques: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Intended to provide directed reading in subject matter not covered in available course offerings.
Directed Reading: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024 8 Week Session
Intended to provide supervision in the preparation of an original research paper or dissertation.
Directed Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Course credit for experience gained in academic teaching through employment as a graduate student instructor.
GSI Training: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Individual study, in consultation with the graduate adviser, intended for qualified students to do necessary work to prepare themselves for language examinations, and the comprehensive examination.
Individual Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Individual study in consultation with the major field adviser, intended to provide an opportunity for qualified students to prepare themselves for the various examinations required of candidates for the Ph.D.
Individual Study for Doctoral Students: Read More [+]