Demography and Higher Education: Some Theoretical and Empirical Considerations on Their Interrelationships

Abstract

Since student flows are heavily influenced by demographic trends, demographic developments are naturally of major concern for educational policy planning. However, past experience has shown that the understanding and application of demographic information in the field of such planning has been extremely poor, although there is almost general agreement that demographic developments can be predicted with a higher degree of precision or certainty than economic, social, political, and other developments which influence the system of higher education. Personally, however, I have certain reservations in regard to this position, which will be examined in further detail below. Meanwhile, it may be noted that these relate, first, to the theoretical base and explanatory power of demographic trend estimates in general and, secondly, to the need for disaggregating demographic data on regions, ethnic background, internal migration, etc., in order to undertake the necessary educational policy planning steps at institutional level. The relationship between demography and education is, of course, rather complex: both aspects, the potential impact of population change on education as well as the reciprocal consideration, the influence of education on demographic trends, have to be studied in much more detail in order to formulate solid hypotheses. This paper will limit itself to some selected aspects of the impact of demographic developments upon higher education, namely the educational policy planning issue of how to meet cyclical developments in student enrolments. Closely connected with this will be a discussion of the issue of the teacher market in general and the faculty market in particular as two specific follow-up problems. Finally, it is not intended to offer a more technical methodological oriented introduction to the demographic aspects of educational policy planning even if only a few studies exist in this field, like the one by Morrison (1976).