Glossary of Demography Related
Concepts
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| A |
| Abortion
Rate |
The
number of abortions per 1,000 women ages 5-44 or 15-49 in
a given year. |
| Abortion Ratio |
The number of abortions per 1,000 live
biths in a given year |
| Age
Dependency Ratio |
The
ratio of persons in the ages defined as dependents (under
15 years and over 64 years) to persons in the ages defined
as economically productive (15-64 years) in a population. |
| Age - Sex Structure |
The composition of a population as determined
by the number or proportion of males and females in each age
category. The age-sex structure of a population is the cumulative
result of past trends in fertility, mortality, and migration.
Information on age-sex composition is essential for the description
and analysis of many other types of demographic data. |
| Age-Specific
Rate |
Rate
obtained for specific age groups (for example, age-specific
fertility rate, death rate, marriage rate, illiteracy rate,
or school enrollment rate). |
| Aging of Population |
A process in which the proportion of adults
and elderly increase n a population, While the proportions
of children and adolescents decrease. This process results
in a rise in the median age of the population. Aging occurs
when fertility rates decline while life expectancy remains
constant or improves at the older ages. |
| Antinatalist
Policy |
The
policy of a government, society, or social group to slow population
growth by attempting to limit the number of births. |
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| B |
| Baby
Boom |
A
dramatic increase in fertility rates and in the absolute number
of births in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand during the period following World War II (1947-1961). |
| Baby Bust |
A rapid decline in U. S fertility rates
to record-low levels during the period immediately after the
baby boom. |
| Balancing
Equation |
A
basic demographic formula used to estimate total population
change between two points in time - or to estimate any unknown
component of population change, provided that the other component
are known. The balancing equation includes all components
of population change: births, deaths, immigration, emigration,
in-migration, and out-migration. |
| Birth Control |
Practices employed by couples that permit
sexual intercourse with reduced likelihood of conception and
birth. The term birth control is often used synonymously with
such terms as contraception, fertility control, and family
planning. But birth control includes abortion to prevent a
birth, whereas family planning methods explicitly do not include
abortion. |
| Birth
rate (or crude birth rate) |
The
number of live births per 1,000 populations in a given year.
Not t be confused with the growth rate. |
| Birth Rate for Unmarried
Women |
The number of live births per 1,000 unmarried
women (never married, widowed, or divorced) ages 15-49 in
a given year. |
| Brain
Drain |
The
emigration of a significant proportion of a country's highly
skilled, highly educated professional population, usually
to other countries offering better economic and social opportunity
(for example, physicians leaving a developing country to practice
medicine in a developed country). |
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| C |
| Carrying
Capacity |
The
maximum sustainable size of a resident population in a given
ecosystem. |
| Case Fatality Rate |
The proportion of persons contracting a
disease who die from it during a specified time period. |
| Case
Rate |
The
number o reported cases of a specific disease per 100,000
populations in a given year. |
| Cause-specific Death Rate |
The number of deaths attributable to a
specific cause per 100,000 populations in a given year. |
| Census |
A
canvass of a given area, resulting in an enumeration of the
entire population and often the compilation of other demographic,
social, and economic information pertaining to that population
at a specific time. |
| Childbearing Years |
The reproductive age span of women , assumed
for statistical purposes to be 15-44 or 15-49 years of age. |
| Child-Woman
Ratio |
The
number of children under age 5 per 1,000 women ages 15-44
or 15-49 in a population in a given year. This crude fertility
measure, based on basic census data, is sometimes used when
more specific fertility information is not available. |
| Closed Population |
A population with no migratory flow either
in or out, so that changes in population size occur only through
births and deaths |
| Cohort |
A
group of people sharing a common temporal demographic experience
who are observed through time. For example, the birth cohort
of 1900 is the people born in that year. There are also marriage
cohorts, school class cohorts, and so forth. |
| Cohort Analysis |
Observation of a cohort's demographic behavior
through life or through many periods; for example, examining
the fertility behavior of the cohort of people born between
1940 and 1945 through their entire childbearing years. Rates
derived from such cohort analyses are cohort measures. Compare
with period analysis |
| Completed
Fertility Rate |
The
number of children born per woman to a cohort of women by
the end of their childbearing years. |
| Consensual Union |
Cohabitation by an unmarried couple for
an extended period of time. Although such unions may be quite
stable, they are not regarded as legal marriages in official
statistics. |
| Crude
Rate |
Rate
of any demographic event computed for an entire population. |
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| D |
| Death
Rate (or Crude Death Rate) |
The
number of deaths per 1,000 populations in a given year. |
| Demographic Transition |
The historical shift of birth and death
rates from high to low levels in a population. The decline
of mortality usually precedes the decline in fertility, thus
resulting in rapid population growth during the transition
period. |
| Demography |
The
scientific study of human populations, including their sizes,
compositions, distributions, densities, growth, and other
characteristics, as well as the causes and consequences of
changes in these factors. |
| Dependency Ratio |
The ratio of the economically dependent
part of the population to the productive part; arbitrarily
defined as the ratio of the elderly (ages 65 and older) plus
the young (under age 15) to the population in the "working
ages" (ages 15-64). |
| Depopulation |
The
state of population decline |
| Divorce Rate (or crude divorce
rate) |
The number of divorces per 1,000 populations
in a given year. |
| Doubling
Time |
The
number of years required for the population of an area to
double its present size, given the current rate of population
growth |
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| E |
| Emigration |
The
process of leaving one country to take up permanent or semi
permanent residence in another. |
| Emigration Rate |
The number of emigrants departing an area
of origin per 1,000 populations in that area of origin in
a given year. |
| Ethnicity |
The
cultural practices, languages, cuisine, and traditions - not
biological or physical differences - used to distinguish groups
of people. |
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| F |
| Family |
Usually
two or more persons living together and related by birth,
marriage, or adoption. Families may consist of siblings or
other relatives as well as married couples and any children
they have. |
| Family Planning |
The conscious effort of couples to regulate
the number and spacing of births through artificial and natural
methods of contraception. Family planning connotes conception
control to avoid pregnancy and abortion, but it also includes
efforts of couples to induce pregnancy. |
| Fecundity |
The
physiological capacity of a woman to produce a child. |
| Fertility |
The actual reproductive performance of
an individual, a couple, a group, or a population |
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| G |
| General
Fertility Rate |
The
number of live births pr 1,000 women ages 15-44 or 15-49 year
in a given year. |
| Gross Reproduction Rate (GRR) |
The average number of daughters that would
be born alive to a woman (or group of women) during her lifetime
it she passed through her childbearing years conforming to
the age- |
| Growth
Rate |
The
number of persons added to (or subtracted from) a population
in a year due to natural increase and net migration expressed
as a percentage of the population at the beginning of the
time period. |
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| H |
| Household |
One
or more persons occupying a housing unit. |
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| I |
| Illegal
Alien (sometimes called undocumented alien) |
A
foreigner who has entered a country without inspection or
without proper documents, or who has violated the terms of
legal admission to the country, for example, by overstaying
the duration of a tourist or student visa. |
| Immigration |
The process of entering one country from
another to take up permanent or semipermanent residence. |
| Immigrant
Rate |
The
number of immigrant arriving at a disease per 1,000 population
at that destination in a given year |
| Incidence Rate |
The number of persons contracting a disease
per 1,000 populations at risk, for given period time. |
| Infant
Mortality Rate |
The
number of deaths of infants under age 1 per 1,0000 live births
in a given year. |
| In-migration |
The process of entering one administrative
subdivision of a country (such as a province or state) from
another subdivision to take up residence. |
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| L |
| Life
Expectancy |
The
average number of additional years a person could expect to
live if current mortality trends were to continue for the
rest of that person's life. Most commonly cited as life expectancy
at birth. |
| Life Span |
The maximum age that human beings could
reach under optimum conditions. |
| Life
Table |
A
tabular display of life expectancy and the probability of
dying at each age ( or age group) for a given population,
according to the age-specific death rates prevailing at that
time. The life table gives an organized, complete picture
of a population's mortality. |
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| M |
| Mathus,
Thomas R. (1766-1834) |
English
clergyman and economist famous for his theory (expounded in
the "Essay on the Principle of Population") that
the world's population tends to increase faster that the food
supply and that unless fertility is controlled (by late marriage
or celibacy), famine, disease, and war must serve as natural
population restrictions |
| Marital Fertility Rate |
Number of live births to married women
per 1,000 married women ages 15-4 or 15-49 in a given year. |
| Marriage
Rate (or crude marriage rate) |
The
number of marriages per 1,000 populations in a given year. |
| Maternal Mortality Ratio |
The number of women who die as a result
of pregnancy and childbirth complications per 100,000 live
births in a given year. |
| Mean
Age |
The
mathematical average age of all the members of a population. |
| Median Age |
The age hat divides a population into
two numerically equal groups; that is, half the people are
younger that this age and half are older |
| Megalopolis |
A
term denoting an interconnected group o cities and connecting
urbanized bands. |
| Metropolitan Area |
A large concentration of population, usually
an area with 100,000 or more people. The area typically includes
an important city with 50,000 or more inhabitants and the
administrative areas bordering the city that are socially
and economically integrated with it. |
| Migration |
The
movement of people across a specified boundary for the purpose
of establishing a new or semipermanent residence. Divided
into international migration (migration between countries)
and internal migration (migration within a country). |
| Mobility |
The geographic movement of people. |
| Morbidity |
The
frequency of disease, illness, injuries, and disabilities
in a population. |
| Mortality |
Deaths as a component of population change |
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| N |
| Natality |
Births
as a component of population change. |
| Natural Increase (or Decrease) |
The surplus (or deficit) of births over
deaths in a population in a given time period. |
| Neo-Malthusian |
An
advocate restricting population growth through the use of
birth control. (Thomas Malthus himself did not advocate birth
control as a remedy for rapid population growth). |
| Neonatal Mortality Rate |
The number of deaths to infants under
28 days of age in a given year per 1,000 live births in that
year. |
| Net
Migration Rate |
The
net effect of immigration and emigration on an area's population,
expressed as an increase or decrease per 1,000 population
of the area in a given year. |
| Net Reproduction Rate (NRR) |
The average number of daughters that would
be born to a woman (or a group of women) if she passed through
her lifetime conforming to the age-specific fertility and
mortality rates of a given year. This rate is similar to the
gross reproduction rate but takes into account that some women
will die before completing their childbearing years. An NRR
of one means that each generation others is having exactly
enough daughters to replace itself in the population. |
| Nuptiality |
The
frequency, characteristics, and dissolution of marriages in
a population. |
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| O |
| "Old"
Population |
A
population with a relatively high proportion o middle-age
and elderly persons, a high median age, and thus a lower growth
potential. |
| Out-migration |
The process of leaving one subdivision
of a country to take up residence in another. |
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| P |
| Parity |
The
number of children previously born alive to a woman ; for
example, "two-parity women" are women who have had
two children and "zero-parity women" have had no
live births. |
| Perinatal Mortality Rate |
The number of fetal deaths after 28 weeks
of pregnancy (late fetal deaths) plus the number of deaths
to infants under 7 days of age per 1,000 live births. |
| Period
Analysis |
Observation
of a population at a specific period of time. Such an analysis
in effect takes a "snapshot" of a population in
a relatively short time period - for example, one year. Most
rates are derived from period data and therefore are period
rates. Compare to cohort analysis. |
| Population |
A group of objects o organisms of the
same kind. |
| Population
Control |
A
broad concept that addresses the relationship between fertility,
morality, and migration, but is most commonly used to refer
to efforts to slow population growth through action to lower
fertility. It should not be confused with family planning. |
| Population Density |
Population per unit of land area; for
example, persons per square mile or persons per square kilometer
of arable land. |
| Population
Distribution |
The
pattenrs of settlement and dispersal of a population. |
| "Population Explosion"
(or "Population Bomb") |
Expressions used to describe the 20th
century worldwide trend of rapid population growth, resulting
from a world birth rate much higher than the world death rate. |
| Population
Increase |
The
total population increase resulting from the interaction of
births, deaths, and migration in a population in a given period
of time. |
| Population Momentum |
The tendency for population growth to
continue beyond the time that replacement-level fertility
has been achieved because of the relatively high concentration
of people in the childbearing years. |
| Population
Policy |
Explicit
or implicit measures instituted by a government to influence
population size, growth , distribution, or composition. |
| Population Projection |
Computation of future changes in population
numbers, given certain assumptions about future trends in
the rates of fertility, mortality, and migration. Demographers
often issue low, medium, and high projection of the same population,
based on different assumption of how these rates will change
in the future. |
| Population
Pyramid |
A
bar chart, arranged vertically, that shows the distribution
of a population by age and sex. By convention, the younger
ages are at the bottom, with males on the left and females
on the right. |
| Population Register |
A government data collection system in
which the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of
all or part of the population are continuously recorded. Denmark,
Sweden, and Israel are among the countries that maintain universal
registers for demgraphic purposes - recording the major events
(birth, marriage, moves, death) that happen to each individual
so that up-to-date information on the whole population is
readily available. Other countries, like the United State,
keep partial registers, such as social security and voter
registration, for administration purposes. |
| Postneonatal
Mortality Rate |
The
annual number of deaths of infants ages 28 days to 1 year
per 1,000 live births in a given year. |
| Prevalence Rate |
The number of persons having a particular
disease at a given point in time per 1,000 populations at
risk. |
| Pronatalist
Policy |
The
policy of a government, society, or social group to increase
population growth by attempting to raise the number of births.
|
| "Push-Pull" Hypothesis |
A migration theory that suggests that
circumstances at the place of origin (such as poverty and
unemployment) repel or push people out of that place to other
places that exert a positive attraction or pull (such as a
high standard of living or job opportunities0 |
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| R |
| Race |
Race
is defined primarily by society, not by genetics, and there
are no universally accepted categories. |
| Rate of Natural Increase
(or Decrease) |
The rate at which a population is increasing
(or decreasing) in a given year due to a surplus (or deficit)
of births over deaths, expressed as a percentage of the population. |
| Remarriage
Rate |
The
number of remarriages per 1,000 formerly married (that is,
widowed or divorced) men or women in a given year. |
| Replacement Level Fertility |
The level of fertility at which a couple
has only enough children to replace themselves, or about two
children per couple. |
| Reproductive
Age |
See
childbearing years |
| Reproductive Health |
Reproductive health is a state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease o infirmity, in all matters relating to
the reproductive system and to its functions and processes.
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| S |
| Sex
ratio |
The
number of males per 100 females in a population |
| Social Mobility |
A change in status (for example, an occupational
change) |
| Stable
Population |
A
population with an unchanging rate of growth and an unchanging
age composition as a result of age-specific birth and death
rates that have remained constant over a sufficient period
of time. |
| Survey |
A canvass of selected persons or households
in a population usually used to infer demographic characteristics
or trends for a larger segment or all of the population. |
| Survival
Rate |
The
proportion of persons in a specified group (age, sex or health
status) alive at the beginning of an interval (such as a five-year
period) who survive to the end of the interval. |
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| T |
| Total
Fertility |
The
average number of children that would be born alive to a woman
(or group of women) during her lifetime if she were to pass
through her childbearing years conforming to the age-specific
fertility rates of a given year. This rate is sometimes stated
as the number of children women are having today. |
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| U |
| Urban |
Countries
differ in the way they classify population as "urban"
or "rural". Typically, a community or settlement
with a population of 2,000 or more is considered urban. A
listing f country definition is published annually in the
United Nations Demographic Yearbook |
| Urbanization |
Growth in the proportion o a population
living in urban areas. |
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| V |
| Vital
Statistics |
Demographic
data on births, deaths, fetal deaths, marriages and divorces. |
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| Y |
| "Young"
Population |
A
population with a relatively high proportion of children,
adolescent, and young adults; a low median age; and thus a
high growth potential. |
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| Z |
| Zero
Population Growth (ZPG) |
A
population in equilibrium, with a growth rate of zero, achieved
when births plus immigration equal deaths plus emigration. |
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