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John
R. Wilmoth
Welcome to my simple but functional web
page. Formally, I am a Professor
in the Department of Demography of the
University of California at Berkeley,
and a researcher in the Berkeley's Center
on the Economics and Demography of Aging. I am also an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Sociology.
Starting in January 2013, I have taken a
leave-of-absence from UC Berkeley to serve as Director of the Population Division of
the United Nations in New York City. The Population Division produces
authoritative studies of population trends for the United Nations and its
Member States, and thus helps to guide the international political discussion
and debate about such topics. The
Population Division also produces the official UN estimates and projections of
world population trends, which are used by many people for various purposes.
Previously, in 2005-2007 I took a similar
leave from UC Berkeley while working for the United Nations.
GENERAL INFORMATION
|
Address: |
Department of Demography |
Phone: |
+1 510-642-9800 |
Curriculum Vitae. My
curriculum vitae is available in PDF format.
TEACHING
UC Berkeley is the only university in the
United States with a Department of Demography. Our primary emphasis is the training of researchers within a
graduate program,
where we offer both MA and PhD degrees in Demography, as well as a PhD in
Sociology and Demography (through the Graduate Group
in Sociology and Demography).
At the undergraduate level, we offer a minor in Demography but
no major.
Given our emphasis on graduate education and
research, a large portion of my teaching occurs outside the usual
classroom. Several graduate
students work together with me on various research projects (see below), and
this kind of involvement forms an important part of their education. In the traditional classroom setting, I
teach courses on population change and research methods in demography and/or
sociology. Courses that I have
taught in recent years are as follows:
·
An undergraduate
lecture course, “Population Issues,” Sociology 126 / Demography
126. This course is offered
annually (usually in the Fall semester), taught either by myself or by Prof. Jennifer
Johnson-Hanks.
·
A graduate
seminar on “Mortality and Health,” Demography 230. We try to offer this course every other
year.
·
A graduate
lecture course, “Advanced Demographic Analysis,” Demography 211. Normally, this course is offered every
other year during the Spring semester;
·
A graduate
seminar on “The Politics of Population Policies,” Demography 260, co-taught
with Prof. Ruth Dixon-Mueller in Fall 2012.
RESEARCH
Much of my research has examined the
enormous increase in human longevity that has occurred during the past 250
years. This work has been supported
continuously since 1993 by a grant from the National
Institute on Aging (NIA).
Published and unpublished papers from this project are listed on my CV. This work
explores several related topics:
·
Causes of the
historical mortality decline
·
Future trends in
human mortality and life expectancy at birth
·
Exceptional
longevity and possible limits to the human life span
·
Mortality
differentials among social groups within populations
·
Variation in
mortality over the life course in humans
·
Familial
resemblance in mortality and longevity
Many of these projects include a significant
methodological component, which is addressed in the context of the substantive
research. However, some
methodological topics have become important research projects of their own,
including:
·
Methods for
forecasting mortality and life expectancy
·
Parametric
models for describing mortality differentials
·
Methods for
decomposing historical population trends into distinct components
This research has also included a special
emphasis on developing better sources of information about historical patterns
and trends in human mortality and life expectancy. Some of this information is now publicly available through
the Human Mortality Database (HMD), a
project co-sponsored by UC Berkeley (with funding from the NIA) and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research,
located in Rostock, Germany. The
HMD replaces the earlier Berkeley
Mortality Database (BMD).
However, the BMD website remains operational at this time, because it
still contains some data not yet available elsewhere (see explanation on the
BMD home page). A companion
project to the HMD, the Human Life-Table
Database (HLD), consists of a collection of ready-made life tables from
various sources. The HLD project
is co-sponsored by UC Berkeley (with funding from the NIA), the Max Planck
Institute for Demographic Research, and the Institut
National d’Etudes Démographiques (INED), located in Paris, France.
Aside from the work on human mortality and
longevity, other topics of my research (both past and present) include:
·
Demographic
impact of assisted reproductive technologies (ART)
·
History of the
debate about world population growth
·
Contribution of
immigration to population growth in the United States
·
Methods for forecasting
international migration
·
Methods for
characterizing demographic variation as a function of age, period, and cohort
·
Methods for
assessing fertility levels in the presence of changes in the timing of births
over the life course
PUBLIC SERVICE
In 2009-2010 I served on an expert panel
convened by the Committee on Population of the National Academy of Sciences, on
the topic of “Divergent trends in longevity in high-income countries.” The panel’s task was to help uncover
the causes behind the declining position of the United States in international
longevity rankings. The Panel’s report is
available at the website of the National Research Council.
In 2003 I participated in a Technical Panel
on Assumptions and Methods organized by the Social
Security Advisory Board (SSAB).
The SSAB is an independent, bipartisan, federal agency charged with
advising the President, the Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security
on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income
programs. Every four years, the
SSAB convenes a Technical Panel to review the assumptions and methods used in projecting
the Trust Funds of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability
Insurance (DI) systems. The 2003
Technical Panel met monthly from January until September, usually in
Washington, D.C. Our Report,
released in October 2003, contains a detailed evaluation of the assumptions and
methods used to assess the financial solvency of the current system (see also
the annual Trustees Report).
CHRISTIAN MORTENSEN
It is often the case that a quantitative
social researcher like myself has too little contact with the people who are
the subjects of his inquiry.
Thanks to good fortune and to some initiative on my part, I had the
pleasure of knowing Christian Mortensen – an American man of Danish origin who
died in April 1998 at the age of 115 years in San Rafael, California – during
the last three years of his life.
Christian Mortensen held the title of “oldest man ever” from March 1997
until December 2012. For photos
and more information, click here.