On the one hand the techniques of demographic projection are essential: they offer powerful and objective quantitative methods that, implemented and interpreted properly, can provide a hypothetical migration commission with critical insights into possible futures - futures that might otherwise...

Is the United States falling behind in the global race for scientific and engineering talent? Are U.S. employers facing shortages of the skilled workers that they need to compete in a globalized world? Such claims from some employers and educators have been widely embraced by mainstream media...

The title of this conference, "Seismic Shifts: The Economic Impact of Demographic Change," might suggest that economic "earthquakes" lie ahead, but while the metaphor is geological, I do not think it was intended to be catastrophically geological. In fact, it is quite appropriate to visualize...

Books reviewed in this article: Copyright 2006 The Population Council, Inc..

Differences in cultural norms and incentives provide a powerful marketplace for garbled demography in the mass media. Journalists are attracted to expectation of dramatic shifts in politically and socially controversial domains that can result from long-term population projections. Demographers...