Demography, translated from Greek, literally means "people's description". What is demographics in general? This is the science of the ways, types of reproduction of various peoples and the factors that (one way or another) influence this process.
The author of the term "demography" was the French scientist A. Guillard in 1855, and in Russia this concept began to be used from the 70s of the 18th century. Initially, the concepts of "population statistics" and "demography" were considered synonymous, but over time the situation has changed somewhat. Currently, demography is an independent science that studies factors that affect mortality, fertility, marriage and termination. In addition, this science also analyzes and predicts demographic processes using special methods. To understand what demography is, it is necessary to study the structure of this science. Thus, demographic theory is responsible for explaining important processes, formulating hypotheses, generalizing data and deriving trends.
Collection of primary data is carried out in the process of population census,which takes place at regular intervals. Another source of information is federal statistics. Methods of information processing are borrowed from sociometry and statistics, which, in general, is natural. In addition, this science describes demographic processes. Analytical demography studies the connections between various demographic phenomena and ongoing processes. Thus, demographers can explain a sharp or gradual decrease in the population or an increase in the birth rate by the influence of various economic, social, environmental and other factors. In addition, there are historical, social, military demographics. The problems of demography in Russia have been studied since the middle of the 18th century. What is demography in tsarist Russia? It is basically the study of population statistics. In the first half of the 20th century, the works of scientists A. A. Chuprov, devoted to the impact of wars on the processes of marriage and dissolution of marriage and the birth rate, and Novoselsky, who studied mortality in detail.
Population censuses were conducted after the October Revolution. And these data became the basis for various studies (not only demographic). However, in the 1930s, all studies of this kind were discontinued. Demographics revived in the 1960s. By that time, scientists realized that this science is not limited to population statistics. Researchers began to study the influence of factors of increasing and decreasing fertility, marriage, and family development. Since the 70s of the last century, the concept of the demographic revolution has been developing, the authorwhich became A. G. Vishnevsky. The Cahors method and the modeling method have firmly entered Russian demography, and domestic science has gradually integrated into the world. By the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, researchers are paying special attention to the study of mortality, patterns of fertility and marriage, as well as the development of modeling and forecasting. All this together allows us to answer the question of what demography is.
