Toward a Comprehensive Demography: Rethinking the Research Agenda on Change and Response

International audiencethe study of population and development covers a broad array of issues and questions in which demographic facts are embedded in economic, social, cultural, and political realms. as a field of research, it should aspire to extend across disciplines and analytical levels, touching on themes such as poverty, power, social organization, resources, and environment that lie at the core of explanations of development success and failure. Yet these high aims are rarely met. demography has a poor record in advancing such understanding beyond its familiar focus on the demographic transition. it seems necessary to seek a new theoretical framework in order to analyze these issues, one that is better able to confront the questions of causality arising in any inves- tigation of population and development