The term demography has been derived from two Greek words, Demos means the people while graph means to draw or to write. So, literally speaking, demography is concerned about writings about people.
Definitions of Demography
Different demographers and sociologists have given their own definitions as under.
Benjamin Demography is concerned with the measuring of the past and future population change and for this purpose the demographers must quantify the elements of fertility, mortality and migration as well as social and economic influences.
Donald J. Bogue Demography is the mathematical study of size, composition and special distribution of population and of changes through the operation of the five processes of fertility, mortality, marriage, migration and social mobility.
Multilingual Demographic Dictionary It is the scientific study of human population primarily with respect to their size, structure and development.
Thompson & Lewis Demography is the study of changes in the size and distribution of population according to time, place and circumstances.
W.G. Barkley Demography dies not deal with the behavior of individuals but with the aggregate of people or ever parts. The numerical portrayal of human population is known as demography.
It has been concluded from the above definitions that, demography is the study of population variables like fertility, mortality and migration to know about the size, distribution and fluctuation (rise & fall) in population.
