Career Opportunities in Demography
Demography as a subject
Demography is the study of populations, including their size, structure and transformations. Demography is the branch of knowledge that deals with human populations; especially. The statistical analysis of births, deaths, migrations, disease, etc., as illustrating the conditions of life in communities. “Social demography” is an area of inquiry which seeks to understand the causes and consequences of population and demographic change by examining sociological and also economic variables. As a subject, demography crosses traditional boundaries of schools of thought and synthesises a broad spectrum of academic disciplines ranging from social, spatial, statistical and environmental sciences to public health and epidemiology. Demographic analyses provide deeper insights into how populations evolve over time and space at the national, regional, state and local levels. Demographic forecasts are inevitable and vital to government and civic planning, and commercial businesses.
Eligibility :
Although a master’s degree is the minimum requirement for most demographic work, there are a few positions available for those with only a bachelor’s degree. Demographers usually have a bachelor’s degree in urban planning or sociology with coursework in statistics, psychology, sociological theory, and economics as a foundation before they do their graduate studies. A master’s degree requires about two years of graduate study. For an academic or research position in this field, a doctoral degree is required.
Career Prospects
Demographers have a range of career opportunities in national and international agencies, local authorities, academic and research sectors and business establishments. The economic and statistical offices, census and planning departments in national and state governments and local health, education and town planning departments are important career destinations for demographers. At the international level, demographers work in various United Nations agencies including UNFPA, UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNDP, WHO, ILO and FAO as well as World Bank, other international NGOs for example, Population Council, Ipas, The Gates Foundation. Demographers are also employed in academic and research sectors including university departments and national level research agencies such as medical statistics, epidemiology, public health and social and economic research units. Other career prospects are in business and market research organisations, multinational corporations including insurance, banking and media.
Relevance for India
Demographers have a critical role in informing and influencing national and state population policies. Demography as a discipline has sufficient scope in India. Given the magnitude, growth rates and geographical distribution of population, India needs to invest substantially more in demographic research and training than ever before. Indian population has nearly tripled in size in the last 50 years. India now has a massive database on population from census, registration and national level surveys. However, there is little quantitative exploration of such data resources. Rather unfortunately, several developmental initiatives in India including urban infrastructure, transport, health systems and city/town planning are undertaken without considering the related demographic and environmental impacts. India has managed to train demographers, but their skills and capacity are not adequately exploited especially within an interdisciplinary framework. Since 1956, demographic research and training received impetus at the national level especially following the establishment of Demographic Research and Training Centre in Mumbai, currently the International Institute for Population Sciences. Alongside, Master’s level training in population studies were initiated within a few University departments, and 18 Population Research Centres (PRC) were established under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to undertake state and region specific demographic analyses. Despite these training initiatives, there is lack of orientation in Indian institutions to facilitate high quality demographic research. More importantly, the training programmes should emphasise critical thinking and quantitative skills to analyse, understand and report nationally and internationally comparable demographic data. From the curriculum development and research perspectives, demography has a promising future in India.