Courses
Sample Courses
DEMOG 5 Fundamentals of Population Science
This course provides an accessible introduction to the social science of demography. The course is organized around cases in which population issues raise policy or ethical dilemmas (example: China’s one child policy). Through these cases, students will learn how demographers use models and data to acquire knowledge about population. Throughout the course, students will also learn to read, interpret, evaluate, and produce tabular and graphical representations of population data.
Sample SyllabusDEMOG 110 Introduction to Population Analysis
Measures and methods of Demography. Life tables, fertility and nuptiality measures, age pyramids, population projection, measures of fertility control.
Sample SyllabusDEMOG C126 Sex, Death, and Data
Introduction to population issues and the field of demography, with emphasis on historical patterns of population growth and change during the industrial era. Topics covered include the demographic transition, resource issues, economic development, the environment, population control, family planning, birth control, family and gender, aging, intergenerational transfers, and international migration.
Sample SyllabusDEMOG C175 Economic Demography
A general introduction to economic demography, addressing the following kinds of questions: What are the economic consequences of immigration to the U.S.? Will industrial nations be able to afford the health and pension costs of the aging populations? How has the size of the baby boom affected its economic well being? Why has fertility been high in Third World countries? In industrial countries, why is marriage postponed, divorce high, fertility so low, and extramarital fertility rising? What are the economic and environmental consequences of rapid population growth?
DEMOG 180 Social Networks
The science of social networks focuses on measuring, modeling, and understanding the different ways that people are connected to one another. We will use a broad toolkit of theories and methods drawn from the social, natural, and mathematical sciences to learn what a social network is, to understand how to work with social network data, and to illustrate some of the ways that social networks can be useful in theory and in practice. We will see that network ideas are powerful enough to be used everywhere from UNAIDS, where network models help epidemiologists prevent the spread of HIV, to Silicon Valley, where data scientists use network ideas to build products that enable people all across the globe to connect with one another.
DEMOG 210 Demographic Methods: Rates and Structures
Population models, multiple decrement life tables, hazard functions, stable population theory, projection matrices, projection programs, population waves, dual system estimation, computer-based exercises and simulations. Required course for Demography M.A. and Ph.D. students.
DEMOG C280 Social Networks (graduate)
This course provides a broad introduction to the empirical and theoretical study of social networks. We will cover classic and contemporary studies, beginning with fundamental definitions and models, and then moving through a range of topics, including models of network formation and structure (homophily, foci, communities); dynamic processes on networks (contagion, influence, and disease models); collaborative networks; personal networks; online networks; and network sampling and data collection. The course material is intended to be of interest to students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including demography, sociology, statistics, computer science, and related fields.