For the final text this semester we turn to an item or action itself
as a unit of analysis:
Demography, and, more specifically, Population Politics
Elizabeth L. Krause
A Crisis of Births:
Population Politics and Family-Making in Italy
Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2005.
Demography: The scientific study of human populations
[That is to say the subject of the discipline of demography is population,
including, including population dynamics.]
NOTE: Demography is not demographics
Demographics can be though of as those item that advertisers and business people use in marketing and broadcasting to sell their products and services to a demographic grouping or a market segment.
"This typically involves age bands (as teenagers do not wish to purchase denture fixant), social class bands (as the rich may want different products than middle and poorer classes and may be willing to pay more) and gender (partially because different physical attributes require different hygiene and clothing products, and partially because of the male/female mindsets). -- Wikipedia
Demography encompasses the study of the size, structure and distribution of populations, and how populations change over time due to births, deaths, migration (including immigration) and ageing. (Demography -- Wikipedia)
Susan Parman, in Europe in the Anthropological Imagination, first mentions demography on p. 6 of the text, and she last mentions it 186 pages later, on p. 192. And in between, demography is one of the most frequent items of analysis mentioned and discussed.
Elizabeth Krause's text, A Crisis of Births, focuses on population as the unit of analysis for Italy.
You have seen that this is one of the major items of discussion in the EU and all of Europe today.
The very first day of class the importance of understanding demography, specifically in the case of Italy, was mentioned as a major topic for consideration in the Anthropology of Europe.
And in every country profile demography is a major item.
You have seen that from the very beginning of Anthropology in and of Europe, in virtually every printed "Master Text," demography actually played a major, if not always, highly visible, role.
In short, demography / population was, is, and will continue to be a major topic of the Anthropology of Europe, and the anthropology of the world using Europe as one of its test cases.
Course WebPage:
Demography and Population Studies
Demography -- Wikipedia
Important Demographic Concepts -- Wikipedia
Questions:
1. In your opinion, how much of what happens in the next generation in Europe is directly related to demography and demographic trends?
Why?
2. In your opinion, what are the three most important demographic problems facing Europe today?
Why?
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