The aim of this grant is to continue providing high quality, interdisciplinary training in demography, with a focus on the relationships between population dynamics, socio-economic systems, and human health and welfare. Our objective is to recruit, train, and place high quality and diverse trainees across a range of disciplines. Many of the most important issues influencing child health and development in the contemporary world are demographic in nature. Examples include high rates of non-marital childbearing and marital disruption, especially in poor and minority communities; postponement of childbearing among highly educated women into the late 30s and beyond; and rising levels of income inequality, exacerbated by increasing residential segregation and marital sorting by education and income. Understanding and making progress on these kinds of problems requires a population perspective. 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. We have sustained a strong record of training and placement, with recent trainees accepting tenure-track positions at Princeton, NYU, Michigan, Stanford, Toronto, and others. Since the last competing renewal, the University has made eight hires in population studies, including national leaders in the areas of research design, policy & health, American family dynamics, and inequality. These hires give further luster to an already extraordinary faculty. Our trainees will continue to (1) learn core demographic method 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 effect critical domains of human welfare, especially population health, family change, and inequality; (3) apply their knowledge of population processes and dynamics to substantive areas, particularly in economics, public policy, public health, and sociology.
These aims are met through (1) core courses in demographic theory, demographic methods, research design, and statistical computing, (2) a broadened array of supplemental courses, including for example Fertility (Johnson- Hanks or Goldstein), Poverty and Inequality (Hoynes), Advanced Computational Methods (Wachter and Feehan), and Health Policy (Dow); (3) a weekly seminar in demography; (4) individual mentoring, especially through collaborative research projects. The proposed number of predoctoral trainees is 6, most of whom will receive 2 or 3 years of training grant support. This training grant complements our other NICHD- and NIH- funded initiatives, including the Berkeley Population Center, the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, the training grant in the Economics and Demography of Aging, the new Summer Workshop in Formal Demography, and the anticipated NIA-funded undergraduate diversity program Cal ADAR: Advancing Diversity in Aging Research at UC Berkeley.
The field of Demography examines the causes and consequences of population size, structure, and change. This program trains students in the study of birthrates and family structure; causes and consequences of trends in immigration; disparities in health and mortality; fiscal impacts of population change; and population and economic development. All of these are important for public health.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 26 publications
