Ethics & Disclosures

Demography joined the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE) in our endeavor to preserve and promote the integrity of the scholarly record through policies and practices that reflect the current best principles of transparency and integrity. Demography follows COPE’s Core Practices alongside specific national and international codes of conduct for research. Please review these practices before submission. In particular, given the nature of the research that is often published in Demography, authors should be attentive to the guidelines for “text recycling” in methods and data sections, where a degree of fidelity to the original description of datasets and methodological procedures is often advisable and acceptable. Authors also should consult the websites for any secondary source of data used in an article for more guidance on how it should be described.

Conflict of Interest Practice for Editorial Handling of Manuscripts

A conflict of interest (COI) occurs when a manuscript is submitted by a current or recent research collaborator, current or recent doctoral student, current or recent colleague, or current or recent postdoctoral mentee of the Editor or a Deputy Editor. A COI also occurs when an author is a former advisor to the Editor or a Deputy Editor or when an author and either the Editor or a Deputy Editor have a close personal relationship.

The current editorial structure enables Demography to handle COI cases efficiently. Although the majority of Deputy Editors are typically at the same institution as the Editor, many are from other institutions and are termed “outside” or “external” Deputy Editors.

First, the Editor-in-Chief is barred from submitting a manuscript to Demography during their term.
In the case of a submission authored by a Deputy Editor, the Editor either serves as Deputy Editor (if they do not have a COI with the submission) or selects a Deputy Editor from a different institution than that of the author, which is most often an outside Deputy Editor. The submitting Deputy Editor has no access to confidential editorial information (e.g., names of reviewers, name of assigned Deputy Editor) related to their submission.
If a manuscript is submitted by any author (as either sole author or a coauthor) from Demography’s current home, the Editor has a COI, and hence one of the outside Deputy Editors is asked to serve as Acting Editor as well as to assume the responsibilities of Deputy Editor. Thus, the final editorial decision is made by the outside Deputy Editor. An identical procedure is used when there is a potential COI with the Editor. If there is no Editor or Deputy Editor without a COI, the immediately preceding Editor is asked to take on responsibility for the review process.

Contact the Journal

For submission and processing questions: demography@duke.edu

For editorial and publishing timeline questions: john@popassoc.org

Post-Acceptance Author Contributions and Attestation Form

The Post-Acceptance Author Contributions and Attestation Form must be downloaded and completed once a manuscript has been accepted for publication in Demography. The submitting/corresponding author is prompted to complete the form in the acceptance letter from the Editors in Chief. This fillable PDF asks for the specific contributions of all authors and attestations regarding authorship, use of AI-assisted technologies, and reproducibility and data availability. If you have questions about completing this form, please contact demography@duke.edu or john@popassoc.org.

Reproducibility and Data Availability Policy

Demography values transparency and reproducibility in scientific research. The journal asks authors of accepted manuscripts to direct readers to an accessible repository for the available data sources and implementation code. While Demography does not maintain a repository for data or code, authors are asked to provide URL links with persistent identifiers (e.g., DOIs or accession numbers) directing readers to their source materials. In the following, we provide guidance for authors.

All accepted manuscripts must include a data availability statement confirming whether and how data have been shared. For data that are publicly available, this statement should describe how the data can be accessed and include a persistent identifier, such as a DOI or repository accession number. For data that are not publicly available, authors must provide a description of the conditions limiting access to the data. These conditions may include legal or ethical restrictions or proprietary discretion.

Demography encourages authors to adhere to FAIR data-sharing principles, which recognize that access to shared data may be restricted to protect confidential or proprietary information, while still promoting data sharing in ways that are as open as possible without compromising data use agreements.

Sample data availability statements illustrating typical scenarios are available upon request from the Demography editorial office, including examples for administrative or remote data center (RDC) data, proprietary commercial data, and survey data held by authors but not deposited in repositories.

Demography also encourages authors to provide, upon acceptance, reproducible code to readers. When code is made available, the code statement should specify the software version used to produce the results. The code itself should be clear and should include informative comments explaining the purpose of each command or formula and how these relate to the paper’s results.

Authors may direct readers to accessible repositories or archived URLs with persistent identifiers for both data and code. Because Demography does not maintain its own repository, authors are responsible for selecting appropriate repositories. Authors are invited to submit datasets to an appropriate discipline-specific or generalist repository. Authors can find additional guidance and a list of repositories by exploring repository registries such as FAIRsharing.org and re3data.org. This information is intended to assist authors in meeting data- and code-sharing expectations as transparently and straightforwardly as possible.

Demography does not edit or validate data or code. All data and code availability statements will be included in published manuscripts following the Acknowledgments. When materials are provided, the availability statement will include the following note (as appropriate): “The author has provided data and code for replicating results.”

AI Policy

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as large language models (LLMs), chatbots, and image creators, are increasingly used across research domains. Demography maintains that AI tools do not qualify as authors and cannot substitute for human authorship. Their use must be clearly disclosed as part of the research and writing process.

AI tools do not meet Demography’s criteria for authorship and therefore may not be listed as authors or coauthors. In addition, sources cited in Demography may not be authored or coauthored by AI tools.
Authors who use AI-assisted technologies—whether for data analysis, thematic coding, statistical modeling, or manuscript writing, including the use of AI-assisted copyediting—must clearly disclose this use.
1. Disclosure must appear in both the submission cover letter and the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript.
2. In the Methods section, authors must describe in detail how AI tools were used in data collection, analysis, or writing of methods and results, including: the name and version of the AI tool(s) used (e.g., ChatGPT, GPT-4); the full prompt(s) or input(s) provided by the tool; a brief explanation of the role the AI tool played (e.g., assisting with data coding, text generation, or formatting figures/tables). Similar information should be included for any use of AI tools in other parts of the manuscript.
3. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the content, proper attribution of sources, and evaluating output for potential bias or errors introduced by AI. All content must be free of plagiarism.
Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts if AI has been used inappropriately or if the use of AI has not been properly disclosed.
Reviewers may not use AI tools in generating or writing their reviews because this could compromise the confidentiality of the manuscript.
AI-generated images or other multimedia are not allowed in Demography without explicit prior approval from the editors. Exceptions may be granted in certain situations—for example, for images in manuscripts that focus specifically on AI or machine learning. Such cases must be disclosed at the time of submission and will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.