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Undergraduate Programming at PAA 2023

By PAA Web posted 05-01-2023
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With generous support from the W.T. Grant Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, two groups of current/recent undergraduates participated in the PAA 2023 Annual Meeting! Coordinated by PAA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee (chaired by Tyson Brown, Duke University) and Executive Director Danielle Staudt, the Undergraduate Pipeline Program brought undergraduates from around the southwest region and beyond for a pre-meeting workshop that included an introduction to the field of demography and careers in population research, as well as information about applying to and succeeding in graduate school. The students met with PAA leadership ...

2023 Nominees for PAA Offices

By PAA Web posted 02-14-2023
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The Nominating Committee is pleased to put forward the following slate for the 2023 PAA Election. The Nominating Committee is comprised of Pamela Herd (Georgetown University), Hedwig Lee (Washinton University Saint-Louis) and Jenny Trinitapoli (University of Chicago). President Irma Elo, University of Pennsylvania James Raymo, Princeton University Vice President Kyle Crowder, University of Washington Jeremy Freese, Stanford University Board Michael Bader, Johns Hopkins University Magali Barbieri, University of California at Berkeley Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez, University of California, Los Angeles Tim Bruckner, University of California, ...

Population Growth of Asians and Pacific Islanders in California: Causes and Consequences

By PAA Web posted 01-24-2023
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by Prabhakara Narasandra (Publish America, 2021). California has been the most populous state in the United States since the 1970 census, when the population of California exceeded that of New York. During the past decade, Latinos and Asians accounted for virtually all of California’s population growth. During the past two decades, the majority of population growth in California has come from natural increase rather than migration, even though fertility rates in the state have been at or near the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman for the past ten years. This overall stability in the total fertility rate hides an increase in birth rates for women ...

David Swanson Elected as Fellow of Mississippi Academy of Sciences

By PAA Web posted 01-17-2023
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PAA member (and frequent PAA Affairs contributor) David Swanson was recently elected as a fellow of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences . This illustrious position recognizes his tremendous professional achievements and services and is awarded for life. Congratulations to Dr. Swanson! #announcements #call-for-applications

Race in the Machine: A Novel Account

By PAA Web posted 01-17-2023
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Race in the Machine: A Novel Account by Quincy Thomas Stewart (Stanford University Press 2023). In a narrative full of social significance and poetically decorated with monks, vampires, and mythical statistics, Race in the Machine presents a world where the stories we use to explain race all simultaneously exist, within and around us, dictating our interactions and innermost beliefs. The nameless protagonist, an enigmatic social mechanic at Nearbay Institute, living in a population of socially connected intelligent machines, encounters a simple query in the context of an introductory lecture: "What exactly is race? And what is it in the context of ...

First PAA Applied Demography Conference in Annapolis

By PAA Web posted 01-17-2023
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In just 3 weeks, colleagues and applied demographers will meet in Annapolis, Maryland, for the first in-person PAA Applied Demography Conference! Program co-chairs Mike Cline, North Carolina Office of State Budget & Management, and Muntasir Masum, Pennsylvania State University, are excited to provide applied demographers with a unique opportunity to participate in a conference built to showcase their work, strengthen their personal network, and bring the applied demography community together. With keynote addresses from Robert L. Santos, Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Sallie Ann Keller, Ph.D., Associate Director and Chief Scientist Research and Methodology ...

Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials: More Important Population Matters

By PAA Web posted 01-10-2023
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This book is a broad collection of short and concise chapters addressing important issues relating to population levels, trends, and differentials authored by Joseph Chamie. In addition to traditional population concerns, such as growth, composition, fertility, mortality, and migration, the articles address a broad range of related issues, including climate change, environmental degradation, socio-economic development, and policy development. The articles are not only aimed at conveying population information, but also providing important messages for informed policy formulation and program implementation. The essays, which originally appeared on various websites ...

Thank You to Our Volunteer Leaders

By PAA Web posted 01-10-2023
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Thank you to all of the volunteers who finished their term in 2022. A special thank you goes out to Robert A. Hummer, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, who exited the Board as the immediate Past President. Thank you to these members who finished their term on the Board of Directors as well as in other volunteer committee roles: Jennifer Van Hook (Vice President), Pennsylvania State University; Deborah Carr, Boston University; Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, University of California, Berkeley; Hedwig Lee, Washington University in St. Louis; Giovanna Merli, Duke University. Clifford C. Clogg Award Committee Chair Susan Brown, Bowling Green State ...

Child Labor in India: an Empirical Study

By PAA Web posted 10-27-2022
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by N.R. Prabhakara. India has five million working children between the ages of 5 and 14, which is more than two percent of all children in this group. Despite legal prohibitions, several socio-economic situations ranging from poverty, high fertility, and a non-responsive education system to poor access to financial services adversely affect a section of children and keep them working. Child labor is considered by most of the work as a ‘necessary evil’ and an economic asset for parents of poor families. Employment of children has been a problem since the early days of industrialization. The purpose of this study is to describe the correlation between migration ...

Congratulations to Steve Ruggles – 2022 MacArthur Fellow

By John Weeks posted 10-13-2022
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Many PAA members will have heard by now that our very own Steve Ruggles is a 2022 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, commonly known as the “Genius Award.” All of us at PAA wish to congratulate Steve for this hugely impressive and important honor. Read below for details. Description of Steve’s work from the MacArthur Foundation (follow the link for more information and a video): Steven Ruggles is a historical demographer building the most extensive database of population statistics in the world. The challenges Ruggles encountered in his research on changing family structures led him to create the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series ...

Fertility Transitions in the Developing World

By PAA Web posted 09-19-2022
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Fertility Transitions in the Developing World by John Bongaarts and Dennis Hodgson (Springer, 2022). This open access book provides an overview and analysis of the causes and consequences of the massive and highly consequential transition in reproductive behavior that occurred in Asia, Latin America, and Africa since the mid-20th century. In the 1950s contraceptive use was rare in these regions, and women typically spend most of their reproductive years bearing and rearing children. By 2020 fertility and contraceptive use in Asia and Latin America had reached levels commonly observed in the developed world. Africa’s fertility is still high, but transitions ...

2022 PAA Election Results

By PAA Web posted 09-13-2022
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Congratulations to the new PAA officers and board and committee members. Thank you to the 53% of members who voted in this election, and a tremendous thank you to all candidates who were willing to participate. All terms begin January 1, 2023, except for the Nominations Committee (terms begin immediately). President-elect Jennifer Glass, University of Texas at Austin Vice President-elect Susan L. Brown, Bowling Green State University Board of Directors Jennie Brand, University of California, Los Angeles Karen Benjamin Guzzo, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Sarah Hayford, The Ohio State University ...

Thomas K. Burch (1934 - 2022)

By PAA Web posted 08-23-2022
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Thomas Kirby Burch, December 15, 1934 - July 26, 2022 Thomas Burch was born in Baltimore, Maryland on December 15, 1934. He was one of three sons born to his parents, Thaddeus and Frances Burch. All three sons attended Catholic schools in Baltimore and pursued a graduate education. Tom’s oldest brother Francis Burch completed his Ph.D. in comparative literature at the Sorbonne in Paris and taught literature at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Tom’s other brother Thaddeus Burch completed his Ph.D. in physics at Fordham University and was professor in the Department of Physics at Marquette University. Both of Tom’s brothers pursued Catholic religious ...

International Handbook of Population Policies

By PAA Web posted 08-23-2022
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Authors: John F. May, Jack A. Goldstone International Handbook of Population Policies Examines contemporary population policies, their evolution, and their prospects Addresses key population challenges globally Provides an up-to-date review of theoretical concepts and policy This Handbook offers an array of internationally recognized experts’ essays that provide a current and comprehensive examination of all dimensions of international population policies. The book examines the theoretical foundations, the historical and empirical evidence for policy formation, the policy levers and modelling, as well as the new policy challenges. The section Theoretical ...

UCLA Fielding School Names Dr. Jessica Gipson Fred H. Bixby Chair in Population and Reproductive Health

By PAA Web posted 08-18-2022
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Gipson will also serve as Director of the UCLA Bixby Center on Population and Reproductive Health Dr. Jessica Gipson , UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, has been appointed director of the Bixby Center on Population and Reproductive Health (Bixby Center) and the Fred H. Bixby Chair in Population and Reproductive Health Science (Bixby Chair), effective July 1. “The Bixby Center on Population and Reproductive Health at UCLA Fielding plays an important role in advancing research and providing learning opportunities for our students,” said Dr. Ron Brookmeyer , dean of the UCLA Fielding School ...

Announcing the New Sara McLanahan Award

By PAA Web posted 06-28-2022
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The PAA Awards Committee and Board of Directors is pleased to announce the creation of a new PAA Award in memory of Sara McLanahan. The McLanahan Award will be given biannually in honor of Sara McLanahan, who was a remarkable scholar, mentor, and policy advisor. The award will go to a senior scholar in recognition of extraordinary contributions to the study of family change, the well-being of children and families, and related social policies. The award will recognize an individual’s own intellectual contributions that reflect cumulative accomplishments and establishment of an excellent publication record of research on families and children, ideally with ...

2022 PAA Officers Election Slate of Nominees

By PAA Web posted 05-03-2022
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The Nominations Committee is pleased to put forward the following slate for the 2022 PAA Election. The Nominations Committee includes Marcy Carlson (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Sara Curran (University of Washington), and Steven Ruggles (University of Minnesota). PAA members will receive a ballot in their e-mail inbox this summer. President Jennifer Glass, University of Texas at Austin Yu Xie, Princeton University Vice President Susan Brown, Bowling Green State University Jenna Johnson-Hanks, University of California, Berkeley Board Jennie Brand, University of California, Los Angeles Juanita Chinn, NICHD Lina Guzman, Child Trends Karen Guzzo, ...

Biodemography: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods

By PAA Web posted 03-29-2022
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CEDA affiliate Professor James Carey at the University of California, Davis, and his co-author Professor Deborah Roach at the University of Virginia, have released the book Biodemography: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods (2020, Princeton University Press) with a Foreword by James Vaupel. Carey has developed over 170 scripted, closed-captioned videos of complementary lectures to the book, available on this CEDA webpage . The 11-chapter book covers all of the major areas of demography from Lexis diagrams, life tables, and mortality models to stable population theory, age-stage models and applied demography (in both humans and non-human species). The ...

America’s Post-Pandemic Future: A Demographic Perspective

By David Swanson posted 01-04-2022
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David A. Swanson, Peter Morrison, Dudley Poston , Steven Krantz , Arni Rao * During the 365-day period ending December 1, 2021, official data registered 265,377 COVID-19 deaths nationwide to persons 15 and older living in the 50 U.S. states , bringing the total COVID-19 deaths to more than 800,000 . This death toll is approaching the nearly 850,000 deaths that occurred during the Civil War . If this year’s pace continues over the coming year, we will see over 1 million total deaths due to COVID-19 and its variants, which will exceed not only the death toll from the Civil War but all of the wars and military actions in which the US has engaged since ...