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Quantifying paradigm change in demography

Author

Listed:
  • Jakub Bijak

    (University of Southampton)

  • Daniel Courgeau

    (Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED))

  • Eric Silverman

    (University of Southampton)

  • Robert Franck

    (Université catholique de Louvain)

Abstract

Background: Demography is a uniquely empirical research area amongst the social sciences. We posit that the same principle of empiricism should be applied to studies of the population sciences as a discipline, contributing to greater self-awareness amongst its practitioners. Objective: The paper aims to include measurable data in the study of changes in selected demographic paradigms and perspectives. Methods: The presented analysis is descriptive and is based on a series of simple measures obtained from the free online tool Google Books Ngram Viewer, which includes frequencies of word groupings (n-grams) in different collections of books digitised by Google. Results: The tentative findings corroborate the shifts in the demographic paradigms identified in the literature -- from cross-sectional, through longitudinal, to event-history and multilevel approaches. Conclusions: These findings identify a promising area of enquiry into the development of demography as a social science discipline. We postulate that more detailed enquiries in this area in the future could lead to establishing History of Population Thought as a new sub-discipline within population sciences.

Suggested Citation

  • Jakub Bijak & Daniel Courgeau & Eric Silverman & Robert Franck, 2014. "Quantifying paradigm change in demography," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 30(32), pages 911-924.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:30:y:2014:i:32
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2014.30.32
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    File URL: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol30/32/30-32.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eileen Crimmins, 1993. "Demography: The past 30 years, the present, and the future," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(4), pages 579-591, November.
    2. Courgeau, Daniel, 2012. "Probability and social science : methodologial relationships between the two approaches ?," MPRA Paper 43102, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Thomas K. Burch, 2003. "Demography in a new key," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 9(11), pages 263-284.
    4. Hendrik P. van Dalen & Kene Henkens, 2000. "What makes a Scientific Article influential?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 00-032/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Hendrik P. Van Dalen & Kène Henkens, 2001. "What makes a scientific article influential? The case of demographers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 50(3), pages 455-482, March.
    6. Jay Teachman & Kathleen Paasch & Karen Carver, 1993. "Thirty Years of Demography," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(4), pages 523-532, November.
    7. Nathan Keyfitz, 1993. "Thirty years of demography and Demography," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(4), pages 533-549, November.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Guy Abel & Valeria Bordone & Raya Muttarak & Emilio Zagheni, 2018. "Bowling Together: Scientific Collaboration Networks of Demographers at European Population Conferences," VID Working Papers 1801, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    demographic paradigms; empiricism; Google books; history of demography; N-grams;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

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