DEMOGRAPHY/POPULATION COMMUNICATION

QUESTION: What is Population Communication?

ANSWER: Before I define Population Communication, let me first of all define the words separately, thus Population and Communication.
Population as defined by the Cambridge International Dictionary of English is all the people living in a particular Country, Area or Place.
Again, in sociology and biology a population is the collection of people or organisms of a particular species living in a given geographic area or mortality, and migration. Though the field encompasses many dimensions of population change including the family (marriage & divorce), public health, work and the labour force, and family planning.
Communication on the other hand, is a process that allows organisms to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged with each other. There are many auditory means, such as speaking, singing and sometimes tone of voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact, or the writing.
Considering the above definitions we can simply say that population communication conveys messages about the collection of people or organisms of a particular species living in a given geographic area over a period of time.
But we cannot discuss population communication without talking about demography. This is because demography is the statistical study of all populations. It encompasses the study of the size, structure and distribution of populations, and how populations change over time due to births, deaths, migration, and ageing. Demographic analysis can relate to whole societies or to smaller groups defined by the criteria such as education, religion, or ethnicity.
Demography has been defined by several people over the years. Below are three definitions of demography taken from wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection.
Demography is the study of human populations in relation to the changes brought about by the interplay of births, deaths, and migration. Term is also used to refer to the actual phenomena observed, as in phrases such as the demography of tropical Africa.(Pressat 1985:54)
Demography is the statistical and mathematical study of the size, composition, and the spatial distribution of human populations, and of changes over time in these aspects through the operation of the five processes of fertility, mortality, marriage, migration, and social mobility. Although it maintains a continuous descriptive and comparative analysis of trends, in each of these processes and in their net result, its long-run goal is to develop a body of theory to explain the events that it charts and compares(Bogue 1969:1-2)
Hauser and Duncan(1959:2) also defined demography as the study of the size, territorial distribution, and the composition of population, changes therein, and the components of such changes, which may be identified as natality, mortality, territorial movement(migration), and social mobility(change of status) .
The study of human populations has its roots. Like sociology generally, in the societal changes that accompanied both the scientific and industrial revolutions. Some early mathematicians developed primitive forms of life tables, which are tables of life expectancies, for life insurance and actuarial purposes. Census, another demographic tool, was instituted for primarily political purposes:
As a basis for taxation
As a basis for political representation.
The development of demographic calculations started in the 18th century. Census taking, on the other hand, has a long history dating back close to 2,000 years among the Chinese and the Romans and even further back in history among groups in the Middle East. Most modern censuses began in the late 18th century. Demography relies on the large data sets that are primarily derived from censuses and the registration statistics (that is, birth, death, marriage registrations) large data sets over long periods of time (example the 2000 census in Ghana).
Population communication/demography plays various roles and functions in the society which goes a long way to enhance development. Some of the functions attributed to population communication/demography are as below:
Population communication supports immigration reforms. It helps check the number of people who enter and go out of the country. This sees to the number of people and the social amenities available before allowing immigrants into the country to avoid too much concentration on economic facilities.
Also Population Communication conveys messages to national leaders on the number of people living in their country, the birth rate, death rate, number of males and females in the country, the migration rate, and the people in the working age group. This helps national leaders to know which policies to formulate at any give time and also what social amenities to provide.
It again serves political purposes such as the basis of taxation based on the number of people in the working age group as well as serve as a basis for political representation.
Population Communication helps International Population Agencies like the Population Communication International (PCI), which is working worldwide, to develop entertainment-education programmes and social marking strategies that support targeted health and poverty alleviation initiatives. For more than twenty years PCI, has worked in over 27countries, producing more than 75 radio and television programmes, training hundreds of individual, and providing technical assistance to more than 100 international organizations.
Demographers are often multi-skilled, particularly if they gained first degrees in subjects such as geography, statistics or health, and have then studied demography at the graduate level. Training in demography will normally provide them with skills in computing and analysis as well as insights into population and health programmes and policies.
Students of demography thus find employment in a wide range of professional settings. In the public sector, demographers are employed in:
Government Statistical Offices, especially in the sections dealing with censuses, surveys, and the registration data.
National, State, and local planning bodies, especially in the educational and health planning, housing, and social policy.
Government research units in areas such as immigration and labour market analysis.
In development cooperation agencies such as AusAID and USAID.
Demographers can also be found in university research units and private consulting firms. Many international agencies, such as the United Nations Population Division and United Nations Fund for Population, and the non-government organizations also utilize the skills of demographers.
In the private sector demographic analysis is recognized as a vital part of market research and the investment planning.
In conclusion, one can say that the components affecting population change are measured by birth, death and migration rates that determine the numbers in the population, its age composition, and how fast it is growing or declining. Demographics are also concerned with the use of existing knowledge and techniques to identify and solve problems.