About Berkeley Demography

Demographic forces drive the shape of global challenges and personal opportunities. Students and faculty at the Department of Demography at UC Berkeley study the deep structure behind these changes.

Emphases include the implications of climate change for the spread of infectious diseases; measurement of population characteristics from social network data; life-long effects of early life conditions; fertility from both cultural and bio-demographic perspectives; and the study of migration at individual, familial, and population perspectives. The Berkeley approach often involves formal modeling and the insights it can provide both into human behavior and the analysis of demographic data.

Continuing a tradition begun in 1965, the Department of Demography offers training for advanced degrees in demography. The program is one of the very few in the United States granting graduate degrees in demography, rather than treating the subject as a field of specialization within another discipline, typically sociology. This training strategy permits greater concentration and depth in demography, as well as program flexibility and breadth in related subjects, helping students to attain both competence in the quantitative aspects of demography and breadth in social science theory and substance. A special characteristic of the program is its emphasis on individual interest, allowing students to pursue their own intellectual concerns while preserving the highest standards through rigorous theoretical and methodological training. Training and research explore anthropological, economic, historical, mathematical, statistical, and social aspects of demography. Computer applications, including exploratory statistical analysis and microsimulation techniques, are strongly emphasized.

Graduates of the Demography programs at UC Berkeley have found positions in academic institutions such as:

  • Beijing University (P.R. China)
  • University of California (Irvine and Berkeley)
  • Cornell University
  • Harvard University
  • Hebrew University (Israel)
  • Indiana University
  • Madrid University (Spain)
  • University of Navarre (Spain)
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Princeton University
  • University of Texas (Austin)
  • University of Wisconsin (Madison)
  • University of Toronto
  • University of Colorado
  • California Polytechnic State University
  • University of British Columbia
  • Brown University
  • University of Michigan

They have also found positions at research institutes such as:

  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Germany)
  • Mountain View Research
  • National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED, France)
  • National Institute of Population and Social Research (Japan)
  • Public Policy Institute of California

They also work in public and private foundations, such as Kaiser Permanente, and federal and state bodies that include the National Research Council, Office of California Statewide Health Planning, US Agency for International Development, and US Census Bureau.

The academic program in demography begins with regularly scheduled courses and seminars. They are augmented by individually designed reading courses, departmental colloquia and lecture series, personal advising and supervision by the graduate adviser and faculty members, as well as informal study groups with peers. Research assistantships, financed through faculty research grants, complement academic courses in developing professional skills. Teaching assistantships help to develop teaching abilities and credentials. 

Berkeley Demography