The Demography of Conflict and Violence: An
Introduction - Helge Brunborg,
Henrik Urdal.
The demography of armed conflict is an emerging field among demographers and peace
researchers alike. The articles in this special issue treat demography as both a cause and
a consequence of armed conflict, and they carry important policy implications. The
articles on demographic responses to armed conflict analyze the destructiveness of
pre-industrial warfare, differences in short- and long-term mortality trends after armed
conflict, and migratory responses in war.
Perspectives on the geographic stability and mobility of people in cities
Susan Hanson, School of Geography, Clark University - Spatial Demography Special Feature.
Abstract: A class of questions in the human environment sciences focuses on the
relationship between individual or household behavior and local geographic context.
Central to these questions is the nature of people's geographic mobility as well as the
duration of their locational stability at varying spatial and temporal scales. Whereas time and space are continuous,
analysts must select levels of aggregation for both length of time in place and spatial
scale of place that fit with the problem in question. Previous work has emphasized
mobility and suppressed stability as an analytic category. I focus here on stability and
show how analyzing individuals' stability requires also analyzing their mobility.
Migration up and down the urban hierarchy and across the life course
D. A. Plane, C. J. Henrie, and M. J. Perry, Spatial Demography
Special Feature.
Abstract: In this article, we begin by reviewing the concept of step migration that
originated in E. G. Ravenstein's seminal papers "The Laws of Migration" (1885,
1889). As a result of the forces of the Industrial Revolution underway in 19th century
Great Britain, migrants moved from farms to villages, from villages to towns, from towns
to county seats, and thence to large cities. Our investigations of recent data and trends suggest that the
latest U.S. migration-pattern regime is a strongly contrasting one. Many of the major
movements in the system of internal migration are flows down the urban
hierarchy, although we note highly differentiated patterns for persons and households at
specific stages of the life course.
Population distribution and redistribution of the baby-boom cohort in the United
States: Recent trends and implications - Peter A. Rogerson and Daejong Kim -
Spatial Demography Special Feature, Edited by Susan Hanson.
Abstract: Over 70 million people were born into the baby-boom cohort between 1946 and
1964. In 1990, the members of the cohort comprised a particularly high
proportion of the population in a small number of dynamic metropolitan areas. We also
highlight the recent migration trends exhibited by this cohort; these trends are
potentially important early indicators of the retirement-related migration patterns that
the cohort might follow. The spatial redistribution of the cohort has many implications,
including potentially significant consequences for intergenerational relationships and
caregiving.
Assimilation and differences between the
settlement patterns of individual immigrants and immigrant households - Spatial
Demography Special Feature - Mark Ellis and Richard Wright, Edited by William A. V. Clark.
Abstract: Analyses of immigrant settlement patterns typically rely on counts of
foreign-born individuals by neighborhood, metropolitan area, state, or region. As an
alternative, this study classifies immigrants and their descendents into household types
to shift attention from individuals to relationships between individuals. Our analysis shows that the
geography of immigration based on households differs considerably from geographies based
on individuals. The spatial distribution and concentration of the foreign-stock population
provides one picture of immigrant geographies, whereas the patterns of concentration by
several different household types opens up the chance to tell other stories.
The changing demographic, legal, and technological contexts of political
representation.
Benjamin Forest - Department of Geography, Dartmouth College, Hanover.
Edited by William A. V. Clark - Spatial
Demography Special Feature.
Abstract: Three developments have created challenges for political representation in the
U.S. and particularly for the use of territorially based representation. First, the demographic complexity of the U.S. population has grown both in
absolute terms and in terms of residential patterns. Second, legal developments since the
1960s have recognized an increasing number of groups as eligible for voting rights
protection. Third, the growing technical capacities of computer technology, particularly
Geographic Information Systems, have allowed political parties and other organizations to
create election districts with increasingly precise political and demographic
characteristics.
Confidentiality and spatially explicit data: Concerns and challenges
Leah K. VanWey, Ronald R. Rindfuss , Myron P. Gutmann , Barbara Entwisle , and Deborah L.
Balk - Edited by Susan Hanson,
Spatial Demography Special Feature.
Abstract: This paper presents four sometimes conflicting principles
for the conduct of ethical and high-quality science using such data: protection of
confidentiality, the social–spatial linkage, data sharing, and data preservation. The
conflict among these four principles is particularly evident in the display of spatially
explicit data through maps combined with the sharing of tabular data files. This paper
reviews these two research activities and shows how current practices favor one of the
principles over the others and do not satisfactorily resolve the conflict among them.
Demography of Sexual Orientation in Adolescents
Gary Remafedi MD, MPH, Michael Resnick PhD, Robert Blum MD, PhD, and Linda Harris.
This study was undertaken to explore patterns of sexual orientation in a representative
sample of Minnesota junior and senior high school students. The sample included 34706
students from diverse ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic strata.
Gender differences were minor; but responses to Individual sexual orientation items varied
with age, religiosity, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Uncertainty about sexual
orientation diminished in successively older age groups, with corresponding increases in
heterosexual and homosexual affiliation.
Aging: The Reality - Demography of Human Supercentenarians -
L. Stephen Coles.
An international committee of demographers has created a carefully documented list of
worldwide living supercentenarians (110 years old) that has been published by the Los
Angeles Gerontology Research Group on its web site and updated on a weekly basis for the
past 6 years. What can be learned by studying this distinguished group of individuals?
Our data suggest that, without the invention of some new unknown form of
medical breakthrough, the Guinness Book of World Records benchmark established by French
woman Jeanne Calment of 122 years, set back in 1997, will be exceedingly difficult to
break in our lifetime.
Israeli Discourse on Arab-Jewish Demography
- Elia Zureik
Abstract: While demography is not new to Zionist and Israeli discourse, its
veracity now and the need, in the face of declining Jewish immigration and
continuing increase in the size of the Arab population, to settle once and for
all the geography and political contours of the “Jewish” state is greater than
ever.
The paper points out that the population debate is driven by three factors: exaggerating
the size of the Arab population in Israel through counting the Arabs of East Jerusalem and
the Golan Heights as part of Israel, the inapplicability of the modernization thesis to
demography as long as socio-economic policies towards the Arab sector remain
discriminatory in their essence, and the tendency to solve the demographic issue by
espousing population transfer and land exchange in the name of national security.
Disentangling the Effects of Demography and
Selection in Human History
Jason E. Stajich and Matthew W. Hahn.
Abstract: Demographic events affect all genes in a genome, whereas natural selection has
only local effects. Using publicly available data from 151 loci sequenced in both
European-American and African-American populations, we attempt to distinguish the effects
of demography and selection. Our
analyses show that the demographic histories of human populations can account for a large
proportion of effects on the level and frequency of variation across the genome.