This program seeks to continue providing high quality, interdisciplinary training in demography of aging, with a focus on the relationships between population dynamics, socio-economic systems, and human health and welfare. Our objective is to continue with our successful recruiting, training, and placement of high quality and diverse trainees across a range of disciplines. Understanding the health implications of an aging population is enhanced by a demographic, population-based perspective. Many of the most important issues influencing aging and the life course in the contemporary world are demographic in nature. Berkeley is widely recognized as one of the leading centers of demographic training and research in the US and the world and is particularly known for its training in the economics and demography of aging. Our graduates hold academic positions at leading universities and demographic research centers in the departments of sociology, economics, anthropology, demography, history, public health and statistics, with recent trainees accepting tenure-track positions at Princeton, NYU, Michigan, Stanford, and others. Berkeley has long occupied a unique niche in the population studies training ecosystem, with a strong focus on the formal analysis of population systems, their dynamics, causes, and effects. This training grant complements our other NIA- and NIH-funded initiatives, including, the P30 Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, the R24/P2C Berkeley Population Center, the R25 Summer Workshop in Formal Demography, the NICHD T32 Interdisciplinary Training in Demography, and the NIA-funded undergraduate diversity program R25 Cal ADAR: Advancing Diversity in Aging Research. The heart of the program lies in the Department of Demography, which has a strong tilt towards formal demography and mathematical and statistical modeling, with applications to biodemography, simulation, forecasting, and mortality analysis. The program is also deeply interdisciplinary, drawing students and trainees from economics, public health, sociology and public policy. Our trainees will continue to (1) learn core demographic methods and theory, with a focus on formal and aggregate approaches; (2) learn to think in critical and theoretically rich ways about how population processes and dynamics affect critical domains of aging and mortality; (3) apply their knowledge of population processes and dynamics to substantive areas; and (4) take a broad array of supplemental courses. Some trainees received their PhD in Demography, and others do so in different disciplines. All Demography PhD students do an MA in an outside department of their choice. Time from entry to PhD is typically 4 to 6 years. Trainees typically receive T32 support for up to four years for the Demography PhD, and up to two years for trainees from other departments and most are recruited for the T32 after their first or second years. Support is requested for four predoctoral trainees, as in the past, and a there is new, well-founded request for two postdoctoral trainees for appointments of 1-3 years.
The proposed program will train new cohorts of demographers to study contemporary issues in population aging, including the prevalence of aging related illnesses and behaviors, which in turn stress public and private support systems for the elderly, including Medicare, Institutional Medicaid, Social Security, familial care of the elderly, and so on. Economic behavior in older ages regarding labor supply and retirement, saving and dissaving, and living arrangements is also highly relevant because of downstream effects on health and well-being.
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