Mathematical demography is the centerpiece of quantitative social science. The founding works of this field from Roman times to the late Twentieth Century are collected here, in a new edition of a classic work by David R. Smith and Nathan Keyfitz. Commentaries by Smith and Keyfitz have been brought up to date and extended by Kenneth Wachter and Herve Le Bras, giving a synoptic picture of the leading achievements in formal population studies. Like the original collection, this new edition constitutes an indispensable source for students and scientists alike, and illustrates the deep roots and continuing vitality of mathematical demography.

Mathematical demography is the centerpiece of quantitative social science. The founding works of this field from Roman times to the late Twentieth Century are collected here, in a new edition of a classic work by David R. Smith and Nathan Keyfitz. Commentaries by Smith and Keyfitz have been brought up to date and extended by Kenneth Wachter and Herve Le Bras, giving a synoptic picture of the leading achievements in formal population studies. Like the original collection, this new edition constitutes an indispensable source for students and scientists alike, and illustrates the deep roots and continuing vitality of mathematical demography.

Essential Demographic Methods brings to readers the full range of ideas and skills of demographic analysis that lie at the core of social sciences and public health. Classroom tested over many years, filled with fresh data and examples, this approachable text is tailored to the needs of beginners, advanced students, and researchers alike. An award-winning teacher and eminent demographer, Kenneth Wachter uses themes from the individual lifecourse, history, and global change to convey the meaning of concepts such as exponential growth, cohorts and periods, lifetables, population projection, proportional hazards, parity, marity, migration flows, and stable populations. The presentation is carefully paced and accessible to readers with knowledge of high-school algebra. Each chapter contains original problem sets and worked examples. From the most basic concepts and measures to developments in spatial demography and hazard modeling at the research frontier, Essential Demographic Methods brings out the wider appeal of demography in its connections across the sciences and humanities. It is a lively, compact guide for understanding quantitative population analysis in the social and biological world.

Biosocial Surveys analyzes the latest research on the increasing number of multipurpose household surveys that collect biological data along with the more familiar interviewera "respondent information. This book serves as a follow-up to the 2003 volume, Cells and Surveys: Should Biological Measures Be Included in Social Science Research? and asks these questions: What have the social sciences, especially demography, learned from those efforts and the greater interdisciplinary communication that has resulted from them? Which biological or genetic information has proven most useful to researchers? How can better models be developed to help integrate biological and social science information in ways that can broaden scientific understanding? This volume contains a collection of 17 papers by distinguished experts in demography, biology, economics, epidemiology, and survey methodology. It is an invaluable sourcebook for social and behavioral science researchers who are working with biosocial data.

Despite recent advances in our understanding of the genetic basis of human behavior, little of this work has penetrated into formal demography. Very few demographers worry about how biological processes might affect voluntary behavior choices that have demographic consequences even though behavioral geneticists have documented genetics effects on variables such as parenting and divorce. Offspring: Human Fertility Behavior in Demographic Perspective brings together leading researchers from a wide variety of disciplines to review the state of research in this emerging field and to identify promising research directions for the future. Table of Contents Front Matter 1. Biodemography of Fertility and Family Formation 2. Genetic Influences on Fertility: Strengths and Limitations of Quantitative Inferences 3. Education, Fertility, and Heritability: Explaining a Paradox 4. The Neural Basis of Pair Bonding in a Monogamous Species: A Model for Understanding the Biological Basis of Human Behavior 5. Hormonal Mediation of Physiological and Behavioral Processes That Influence Fertility 6. Intraspection Variablity in Fertility and Offspring Survival in a Nonhuman Primate: Behavioral Control in Ecological and Social Sources 7. An Evolutionary and Ecological Analysis of Human Fertility, Mating Patterns, and Parental Investment 8. Sexually Antagonistic Coevolution: Theory, Evidence, and Implications for Patterns of Human Mating and Fertility 9. Pubertal Maturation, Andrenarche, and the Onset of Reproduction in Human Males 10. Energetics, Sociality, and Human Reproduction: Life History Theory in Real Life 11. Evolutionary Biology and Rational Choice in Models of Fertility 12. Reflections on Demographic, Evolutionary, and Genetic Approaches to the Study of Human Reproductive Behavior Contributors and Other Workshop Participants Index