Demography, a Fully Formed Science or a Science in the Making? An Outline Programme

Abstract

In this article, we examine D. Tabutin's view that has certainly become a science in true sense of word, with its body of research objects, methods and paradigms. We also attempt to understand why he nevertheless goes on to state that [is] marking time, and still just as hesitant when it comes to understanding and explaining. We then go on to (1.) explore subject matter of demography, (2.) sketch out a more precise programme for discipline, (3.) examine its paradigms and (4.) stress value of a more axiomatic approach, which would reinforce its scientific pertinence and hence its reliability.1. The object of demographyIs concern of demography the behaviour of human populations, from individual to society level, as Tabutin's article states? If demography went down this road, it would end up embracing everything. There is a need, we feel, to resist temptation to spread ourselves too thinly; we must strive, on contrary, to focus our research on specific object of demography.This was defined long ago as trio/ertility, mortality and migration. Yet by defining its specific object in this way aim was not to restrict demography to study of births, deaths and migratory movements, but rather to circumscribe perspective adopted by demographers to study transformations in a population. These transformations are many and varied, but they are partly result of growth in that population, its decline, or stabilization. The specific perspective of demography is that population growth, decline and stabilization may ultimately be explained by a particular combination of fertility, mortality and migration.This sort of explanation is not causal. It can be compared with Galileo's explanation of acceleration of bodies in free fall: such acceleration may be explained, he maintained, by a particular combination of distance covered and time elapsed. Yet neither time nor space is cause of acceleration of a free-falling body. Nevertheless, it is combination of these two which gives us universal form of all natural acceleration. Space and time are parameters(1) by which such acceleration may be explained.The same holds true for specific object of demography. Fertility, mortality and migration are set of parameters by which we seek to understand basic form of growth, decline or stabilization of any given population.As for empirical factors (or causes) influencing population growth, decline or stabilization, they are surely countless and extremely varied, at both individual and social levels (Courgeau, 2003). But rather than exploring them all, as Tabutin's article recommends, demographers ought to consider only those which are thought to have an impact on combination of fertility, mortality and migration in this population; it is therefore particular perspective of demography, its specific object, that directs empirical investigations, laying down a clear pathway through jungle of facts.2. An outline programmeHaving established specific object of demography, or its particular perspective on population change, we can clearly see two main tasks facing discipline. The first - as we have just mentioned - is to determine factors influencing combination of fertility, mortality and migration in a given population at a certain point in time, in hope of controlling its growth, decline or stabilization. The second, yet more ambitious, is to ascertain general structure of combination of fertility, mortality and migration, in other words principle of all demographic growth and decline (just as law of Galileo gives us principle of all natural acceleration). As far back as 1760, Euler sought to establish bases of such a principle, which were then generalized by Lotka in 1939, and subsequently by Preston and Coale in 1982. …