Demographic Concepts and Methods 
Dates: 14-15th May 2012
Duration: 2 days (10am to 4.00pm)
Level: 2
Course Leader: Paul Norman
Course Fee: £350 (£250 for those from educational institutions)
CCSR offers 5 free places to research staff and students within the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester and the North West Doctoral Training Centre.
Course requirements: Participants should have good familiarity with Microsoft Excel or similar multi-spreadsheet program.
Course summary
This course is delivered over two consecutive days and is aimed at those with no demographic training. The focus will be on the basic components of demographic change through measures and data sources to calculate and illustrate population structure, fertility, mortality and migration. Thus included are population pyramids, sex ratios, dependency ratios and fertility rates. The calculation of age-sex standardised ratios are also included in the course.
Please note that a portfolio of demographic-related course is offered at CCSR over a five day period. This standalone course on Demographic Concepts and Methods takes place on days 1 and 2 but participants may also be interested in day 3 on population estimating and forecasting and days 4 and 5 on using the ‘POPGROUP’ software.
Course objectives
The course will:
- Provide a grounding in the principles underlying demographic analysis
- Introduce basic demographic techniques
- Give examples of situations which utilise these techniques
So that, by the end of the course, participants will:
- Be able to identify appropriate data sources
- Be able to apply appropriate techniques to population data in a range of research & policy situations
- Be well-resourced in terms of both methods and skills)
Target audience
This course is designed for current and potential users of demographic data. Participants wishing to get skilled up in this topic area might be postgraduate or other established academics or be from local/national government, health service, emergency services or business backgrounds.
Preliminary Reading
- Newell C (1988) Methods and Models in Demography, Wiley: London
- Rowland D (2003) Demographic Methods and Concepts, Oxford University Press: Oxford