EMERGENCE OF DEMOGRAPHY

EMERGENCE OF DEMOGRAPHY

            In 1962, the issues of population become known by a scholar named John Graunt (London); he is generally regarded as the father of Demography and these achievements were a result of his publication (natural and political observation made upon the bill) in 1962. The publication marks the beginning of serious consideration of Demography. The history behind this, is that, in the early 16th century, the city of London ordered that the number of deaths will be recorded in every parish along with the number of christenings (births) [children that have been named] beginning from 1592. It is the record that is referred to as BILLS RECORD. These bills were conducted by each PARISH CLERK recorded at every end of the week will be recorded and circulated on weekly basis. "Note, the period of plague is also referred to as period of epidemics" this plague motivated for the bills of mortality; the cause of death is ordered to also be recorded and the sex of the death not only the number of the deaths, the age of those dying is also added in the 18century. The materials that were compiled from 1592 to1662 were all collected and studied by John Graunt.

In 1962, he analysis the series of volume; Graunt is not a professor but a haberdasher; a person who sells small articles of sewing, such as buttons, ribbons, zip etc. after his analysis Graunt found the following.

1.     In London of that day, deaths exceeded births whereas in rural areas, the reverse is the case.

2.     He discovers the Biological phenomena that at birth the number of male infants exceeded the number of female infants and that there is a distinctive age pattern of death.

3.     He classifies deaths by cause, and learned that the causes of varied from place to place and from year to year example the highest causes of death in the city might be accident.

4.     He is credited from accrued MORTALITY-TABLE that otherwise known as LIFE-TABLE. He discovered from the life table you can predict your expectancy of living.

5.     He undertook & estimates the trends of growths and size of London's population and correctly identifies mortality, fertility & migration as the components of growth.

6.     He was able to evaluate the data used in any research to learn the extent, types and probable courses of errors and to devise adjustment and correction factors to remove bias in statistical measures computed from the data.

7.     He established as a leading goal of population study the development of explanation for the underlined regularities observe. He developed the act of explanation on every discovery made.

These were the observation of john Graunt from an unpromising material made from the BILL OF MORTALITY. He has a friend called WILLIAM PETTY from a society of the influential. He discourse his work with William Petty, his friend and he encourages Graunt with the work. He was the one that circulated the work in the Royal Society. He brought the work to the attention to the scientific world in 1970s. Petty’s work (political arithmetik] was published in 1690. From the two works, Petty generated many original and stimulating ideas of population.

            The empirical research of John Graunt supplement by the insight of William Petty marks the emergence of demography as a scientific discipline. The influence of the two men spread to France and later to Germany and other Europeans countries and during the 18th century, there was an awakening of interest in population study. This often led to the form of compiling of many facts as possible of the entire nation and led to the Early Census of duration or the commencement of the vital registration.