Category Migration and geography
Urban youth bulges in sub-Saharan Africa
Population age composition is recognized as determining numerous aspects of society – from fertility rates to pension policies. One type of population age structure, a youth bulge, has its own particular effects. A youth bulge generally refers to a population with a high proportion of 15-24 year olds. A positive effect of a youth bulge […]
Population change in Georgia from 1990 to 2018
Giorgi Kankia and Lika Zhvania write about population change in the country of Georgia from a spatial development perspective. Shrinking population The population of Georgia is shrinking. According to official statistics, it decreased by 1.2 mln (nearly 25% of the total population in 1990) in 1994 – 2018. Somewhat decreased fertility rates or armed conflicts […]
Lost in Translation: Language Segregation among Hispanics in the United States?
Over 50 million Hispanics live in the United States. One-quarter speak English and no other language, and another 40% speak English very well. The other 18 million Hispanics are split between those who speak English well (38%), not well (37%), and not at all (26%). Remarkably, we know little about where Hispanics with divergent English […]
A functional data analysis approach for forecasting age-specific population size: A case study for the United Kingdom
Han Lin Shang writes about forecasting age-specific population size based on an example of the UK. In recent decades, we have seen a considerable amount of development in the stochastic modelling and forecasting of population. Cohort component projection models are often used to model the evolution of age-specific population, and are particularly useful to highlight which […]

Malaria importation from Africa to China driven by investment and migrant workers
Shangjie Lai writes about the role of migration in transmission routes of malaria between sub-Saharan Africa and China. The international spread of infectious diseases including Plasmodium falciparum malaria has been accelerated by increasing human mobility via air travel over recent decades. An emerging route of P. falciparum infection is from Africa to China by Chinese […]
Examining the Urban and the Rural
This is a post by Ashira Menashe-Oren on varying age structures between rural and urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa and their consequences. The rural-urban dichotomy is the one of the most common classifications used to describe population distribution within a country. Available for many data sources, it is a simple binary measure. It is universally […]
The Land of Babushka
This is a post by Ilya Kashnitsky, which discusses his recent research on population dynamics in Russia. There are some Russian words that are commonly known across the world. One of them is “babushka”, meaning “granny”, which in some contexts can simply be translated as “old lady”. In fact, this word may become even more […]
Location, location, location! Why space matters in demography and why we should care.
Alessandra Carioli (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute) prepared this overview based on her study presented at EPC 2014 in Budapest “A Spatial Analysis of Recent Fertility Patterns in Spain”. This study won one of the poster awards at EPC 2014 and is co-authored together with Daniel Devolder (Centre d’Estudis Demographics, UAB) and Joaquin Recaño (Centre d’Estudis […]
Probabilistic Population Projections: taking migration into account
Jonathan Azose is a PhD student at the University of Washington, United States. His research group focuses on probabilistic population projections, which looks to be an upcoming area in demography. In July 2014, the UN published probabilistic population projections for the first time. Probabilistic projections are nice in that they provide not only point projections, […]
Research spotlight: Personal ties or institutional context? Determinants of partner choice for descendants of Turkish migrants in Europe
In their article “Partner choice patterns among the descendants of Turkish immigrants in Europe”, Doreen Huschek, Helga de Valk and Aart Liefbroer examine how the institutional context as well as personal ties, such as family and peers, influence the partner choice of second-generation Turks. Growing shares of European populations are made up of immigrants and […]
Is it possible to accurately measure migration?
This is a guest post by Edward Morgan (BSc FRGS). Edward is a master’s student studying Population and Development at the London School of Economics. Edward is a Geography graduate of the University of St Andrews and a former public health consultant to the Met Office. For more information, visit his webpage. Earlier this week, […]
Conference News: Recent Migration Flows in the Nordic-Baltic Region
While the flows of Nordic-Baltic migration might be small compared to the rest of the movements within Europe, they have an important role to play in the development of the region and relationships between countries. New trends and implications for the region were discussed at a recent conference in Tallinn called “Migration and Demographic Challenges […]