Believe it or not, popular and trendy are derived from ideas
and thoughts deeply rooted from time. Popular is defined as “Liked, admired, or
enjoyed by many people or by a particular person or group” while trendy is
defined as “Very fashionable or up to date in style or influence”.
Popular is a
derivative of population, specifically a group of the population and trendy is
derived from trend, which is a general direction in which something is developing
or changing. Though the words are different from the word today, the idea of
popular and trendy has existed since the Ancient Greeks. All this culminates in
the study of Demography.
Demography is the statistical study of human populations and
sub-populations. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any
kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space
(see population dynamics). It encompasses the study of the size, structure, and
distribution of these populations, and spatial and/or temporal changes in them
in response to birth, migration, aging and death.
Demographic analysis can be applied to whole societies or to
groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion and
ethnicity. Institutionally, demography is usually considered a field of
sociology, though there are a number of independent demography departments.
Formal demography limits its object of study to the measurement of populations
processes, while the broader field of social demography population studies also
analyze the relationships between economic, social, cultural and biological
processes influencing a population. The term demographics refer to
characteristics of a population.
Demography is today widely taught in many universities
across the world, attracting students with initial training in social sciences,
statistics or health studies. Being at the crossroads of several disciplines
such as sociology, economics, epidemiology, geography, anthropology and
history, demography offers tools to approach a large range of population issues
by combining a more technical quantitative approach that represents the core of
the discipline with many other methods borrowed from social or other sciences.
Demographic research is conducted in universities, in research institutes as
well as in statistical departments and in several international agencies. The
University of Southampton offers a degree in Social Sciences: Social Statistics
& Demography. The University of Manchester offers a Sociology degree that
allows for study in demography. Queen’s University of Belfast also has a degree
in Sociology allowing further study into demography. Otherwise, the University
of Warwick offers a degree in Sociology allowing specialism in research
technique that will benefit you as a student of demography.
Career options are numerous. Commercial companies, local and
national government all require employees with the skills and knowledge to
understand and research the relationship between population, health, housing
and policy. Local and overseas development and voluntary organisations are also
increasingly employing people with expertise in population issues. Not all
graduate careers are directly related to population studies, but the portfolio
of transferable skills developed during your studies, including skills in
computer proficiency, problem-solving, communication, numeracy, statistics and
research methods, are all viewed extremely favourably by employers.
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