Human Demography College Lab Example: Introduction

Introduction

Achille Guillard first created the term “demography” in 1855 and the study of human demography began even before then. Guillard defined human demography as being the study of the history of humans and the mathematical knowledge of human populations and their conditions.  Demography is the study of the changes that occur to animal and human populations.

Demography allows us to track changes over time to human populations and to illustrate how different periods in history change population dynamics. A large part of demography is the study of vital statistical information, including birth and death rates and immigration patterns, which can be used to determine what changes are occurring in population dynamics. Humans can track changes happening to threatened animal species using demographic models. We are also able to see how events such as war and the evolution of healthcare in the United States have changed lifespan and other human population factors.

In this investigation, we hypothesized that there would be differences in the survivorship of individuals who lived in the 19th and 20th centuries because healthcare in the United States was greatly improved in the 20th century, which could have increased the lifespan of many humans. We also hypothesized that the survivorship of females would be higher than the survivorship of males because data has shown that, in general, women tend to outlive men.