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Sociology and Demography:

Perspectives on Population*

cHARLE s B. NA u, Florida State Uniaersity

ABSTRACT
Sociology and demography, as distinct although related disciplines,
should haae different perspectiaes on matters concerning population. A rmiew
of sociologiul published material and organizational practices indicates that
sociologists haoe not been true to their discipline where population topics are
dealt with. Suggestions are giaen for alteing this tendency and sociologists
(especially those whose prior interests haoe not included populntion) Are en-
couraged to contribute to areal sociology ofpopulation.

At least since the time of August Comte, learned men and women have
attempted to define the scope and content of various scientific endeavors.
tacing the boundaries of the human sciences and making significant dis-
tinctions among them has been a difficult task and one which has created
scholarly conflicts and may sometimes have impeded scientific progress.
American universities act as if the matter is fairly clearcut, although
organizational differences appear. For example, the biological sciences
generally have departmental status within a larger college or division
that covers the natural and physical sciences. The social sciences are ac-
corded a separate place in the structure, and disciplines such as economics,
sociology, and political science fall neatly within. Other acknowledged
disciplines, whose concerns may span across these broader rubrics, are fre-
quently assigned to one or another college or division on the basis of the
discipline's principal interests, the slant of the department's programs, or
the predilection of some key faculty members. Thus, anthropology may
be found in the humanities division rather than the social sciences, psy-
chology may be treated as a natural science instead of a social or behavioral
science, geography may be joined to the earth sciences rather than be
located in the socral sciences, and so on.
The institutional base of these traditional disciplines becomes firmly
entrenched. Their stability liss not so much in the constancy of their subject
tPresidential address delivered at the annual meeting of the Southem
Sociological Society,
1982.
o 1982 The University of North Carolina Press. ffi37-n3218210m359-73901.50

359
360 / Social Forces Volume 61:2, December 1982

matter or their scientific approach, both of which may undergo change, but
through reinforcement of national and regional professional associations
and their journals, and the tendency for conservatism and inertia in aca-
demic organization and review. Activities of scholars in interstitial areas of
science are generally frowned upon because of their threat to the integrity
of the existing academic disciplines and the confusion it causes among
academic administrators. On occasion, such interstitial realms become rec-
ognized for their unique perspectives and contributions and may even be
recognized through establishment of a research center or laboratory in
which interdisciplinary study can proceed without upsetting the accepted
table of academic organization. It is rare for an interstitial area of this kind
to acquire the status of an academic department although one can find
examples, particularly in universities outside the United States.
Contemporary writers have acknowledged the difficulty of accepting
the existing academic order of the sciences. Piaget questioned Comte's
linear classification of the sciences, including the placement of sociology
above the other social sciences, and allowed as to how
In reality none of the sciences can be displayed on a single plane, for each involves
hierarchical levels . . . the order of the sciences must become circular . . . the sci-
entific system as a whole is caught up in an endless spiral, the circular motion of
which has no negative effects in itself but simply gives expression to the dialectic
between subject and object in its most general form (45).
"It is apparent,"
says Sills, "that the question 'What are the social sci-
ences?'is one to which no final answer can be given, since-like other
groupings of scientific and academic fields-the social sciences differ in
their scope from one generation to another. There are also within-genera-
tion differences" (xxi). Homans argues that "the social sciences together
constitute a single science, a science of human-and, if you like, even
animal-social behavior" (80).
Yet, the social sciences and the constituent disciplines have acquired
a firm identity. "]ust as the scientific revolution gave rise to an array of
highly specialized natural and physical sciences which we conveniently
label 'science,"' writes Mitchell, "so too we can now speak of a group of
disciplines whose interests are in rnan and society, which may be con-
veniently referred to as social science" (192). The National Association for
the Promotion of Social Science was founded in Britain in1857, and the
American Social Science Association came into being in 1865. The con-
ception of an all-embracing social science was not, however, accepted by
scholars in various disciplines until the twentieth century. In the meantime,
the separate social sciences became recognized and grew in both numbers
of members and their teaching, research, and professional development.
 Perspectives on Population / 361

Sociology Among the Social Sciences

Whether sociology has emerged as the queen of the social sciences, as

Comte had placed it, the discipline has certainly become an academic fix-
ture and a thriving profession.
To describe its distinctiveness among the social sciences is another
matter. Lazarsfeld claimed that "sociology has not developed around a
positive subject matter but as a residual activity, filling in the blank spots in
an intellectual map" (62). "Sociology initially survived and developed in
America," says Williams, "partly because much of its work dealt with
matters that had been rejected or ignored by established disciplines" few
of which "would have seen any fundamental cognitive challenge in such
rag-picking on the periphery of the intellectual market-place" (87).
Textbook writers of general sociology have had no easy time in spe-
cifying and elaborating the field. One is hard-pressed to come up with
simple definitions of the field comparable to Malinowski's definition of
anthropology as "the study of man, embracing women" (cited by Smelser).
Smelser comes close when he says that sociology is "the scientific study of
all that is social in the human condition" (5). Bates refers to its concern
"with how human social behavior is organized and how the organization
changes over time" (5). Inkeles argues that delineation of the field must
"avoid 'pre-packaged' definition of its subject matter" and must emerge
from the answers to three questions: "What did the founding fathers say?
What are contemporary sociologists doing? \Atrhat does reason suggest?"
(2). Following his own lead, he reviews the field's history and practices, its
early social problem and humanistic orientations, its later attempts at for-
malization and focus on structures and processes, and subsequent pre-
occupation with the nature and content of sociai action, and concludes that
"Sociology is the study of social order, the underlying regularity of human
social behavior," including "the efforts to attain it and departures from
it. . . . Working with . . . systems of social action, sociology attempts to
explain their continuity through time, and to understand how and why
these units and their relations change or cease to exist" (27).
In one respect or another, that general definition was implicit in the
selection of subfields of sociology back to the founding fathers. Spencer
included within sociology emphases on the family, politics, religion, social
control, industry or work, associations, communities, division of labor,
social differentiation or stratification, the sociology of knowledge and of
science, and art and aesthetics. Durkheim (a) acknowledged those plus
personality in the individual and the collectivity, law and morals, and de-
mography. These categories read like the table of contents of many current
textbooks of sociology.
352 / Social Forces Volume 51:2, December 1982

The Social Sciences and Population

The subject of population came into sociology in a variety of ways. The

early-French sociologists becarne quite interested in how population size
and density produced a division of labor and influenced the character of
social action. In America the study of many organizational forms necessi-
tated familiarity with demographic changes that shaped institutional pat-
terns. Foremost were the great immigrations, the waves of rural-urban
migration, the concentrations of people with varying characteristics within
cities, and the dynamics of age composition. Also, the growing emphasis
in the discipline on empirical analysis brought sociologists more irrtouch
with censuses, vital statistics, and surveys, the foundations of population
information with social significance.
Among the other social sciences, population was incorporated as
a substantive interest to varying degreeJ and at varying periods of dis-
ciplinary evolution. From Malthus' time onward, economists paid con-
siderable attention to the connections between population and economic
conditions. That interest waned during the early twentieth century as other
concerns, such as trade, budgeting, and monetary policy, attracted macro-
economic theorists, and microeconomic theory increasingly became a focus
in that discipline. It has only been in recent decades that the study of
population has had a resurgence in economics. No student of international
economics could escape the variables of population dynamics; and the
so-called "new home economics," with its emphasis on economic functions
of the family, now guides considerable research on decision-making in the
fertility and migration spheres.
Human ecology, with its stress on man's adaptation to the broad
environment, gave population a central role, especially through the popu-
lation-organization-environment-technology framework which has
guided so much of human ecological research. Despite academic confusion
about the links between demography and hurnan ecology, the two are as
distinct in their main thrusts as almost any two social sciences. Following
Hawley,

The central position given to population rather than to the individual has estab-
lished a close affinify of human ecology with demography. The point of contact lies
at the interface of the mathematical properties of population and ecosystem struc-
ture. . . . the population of interest to human ecology is not the aggregate of all
units conforming to a given definition but the aggregate of units which are subject
to inclusion in a given set of relationships, that is, the aggregate which possesses or
is in process of acquiring unit character. . . . Accordingly, human ecology finds
it necessary to pursue the meaning of population well beyond the conventional
denotation of demography (120).
 Perspectives on Population / 363

Other social sciences have been more recent in their discovery of

population as relevant to their substantive concems. Historians increas-
ingly deal with historical accounts of demographic change in particular
areas. Population geography has sprouted as one of the newer subspecial-
ties of a traditional field. Anthropologists have moved population interests
well within their range of cultural, genetic, and other evolutionary pro-
cesses. Among political scientists today, one finds many who have staked
out concentrations in political demography or population policy. Even in
psychology, we are seeing the rise of microdemography with adaptations
of conventional motivational and attitudinal frameworks to population
decision-making.

Demography as a Unique Discipline

It is within the discipline of sociology, of course, that the study of popula-

tion has established itself most firmly. The largest percentage of persons
calling themselves demographers were trained in sociology, and more
people who teach or do research on population topics in academia are
found in sociology departments. For these reasons, demography is fre-
quently regarded as a subfield of sociology.l
In fact, there is considerable confusion between demography and
the sociological study of population. Some writers have chosen the term
"social demography" (Ford and DeJong) for the latter, and others have
made a distinction between "demographic analysis" and "population
studies" (Hauser and Duncan) to differentiate study of the internal and
external relations of population systems.
It is now largely accepted, howevet that demography stands as a
discipline on its own (Vance). "The simplest way to characterize a discipline
is to depict its subject matter concretely," says Smelser (5). In another con-
text, I have written that what identifies a unique discipline is
the existence of a substantial and critical subject matter which plays a crucial role in
understanding universal phenomena. The established sciences have long been
seen to have this cenhality of purpose; the newer sciences have had to justify their
existence in that respect. Advances in the social sciences have accompanied the
growth and increasing complexity of societies and the need to understand them.
Scholarly disciplines can thus be viewed as functional intellectual necessities in a
dranging world (487).
Many disciplines have now incorporated concerns with popula-
tion as a response to the growing importance of population structure and
change in human societies. The justification for demography as a unique
discipline stems partly from the scope and intensity of concem with popu-
364 / Social Forces Volume 61:2, December 1982

lation and partly from the fact that other disciplines heat population as
peripheral to their central focus.
Population is of interest to biologists, but the substantial and critical
subject matter of biology is the structure and function of various units of
life as they interact with their broader environments. Population is of in-
terest to economists, but the central concem of economics is the allocation
of resources in the context of supply and demand and extraneous physical
and social conditions. Population should be of interest to sociologists, but
the essential subject matter of sociology is the way in which various social
forms (gloups, institutions, and aggregates) influence social behavior and
are in turn influenced by it.
In such a sense, the substantial and critical subject matter of demog-
raphy is variations in the size and structure of human populations and
how these variables interact with other aspects of societies. Only demog-
raphy views the workings of the population system and its components in
a total and systematic mannet although other disciplines deal with par-
ticular population linkages as they are related to the central concems of
those disciplines.
The confusion that exists in differentiating demography and the
sociology of population arises, in part, because the newer field of de-
mography does not have a departmental home at least anywhere in this
country, and it has been more or less adopted administratively by soci-
ology, and occasionally other social science departments. An integral treat-
ment of demography can only be found, if at all, in demographic centers or
institutes which are not necessarily tied to any other discipline.
Scholars who see themselves principally as demographers and sec-
ondarily as sociologists are academic schizophrenics, while those who re-
gard themselves as principally sociologists and, perhaps, secondarily as
demographers are often viewed as academic bootleggers who are car4zing
on some illicit activity using a respectable front. If one should profess to
being only a sociologist with a principal interest in population and no
demographer at all, he or she is to be suspected of academic deception and
watched carefully by the department chairperson. I would guess that all
three situations have their examples in academic sociology.

The Tleatment of Population Within Sociology

One of the main points I want to make is that historically, and at present,
the study of population has received incomplete and inadequate attention
within sociology. An examination of the treatment of population within
sociology shows a lack of comprehension of the basic relationships in-
volved as reflected in major writings in the field, introductory textbooks,
and professional association activities.
 Perspectives on Population / 365

A trace of sociological history uncovers few points where population

matters are significant elements of theoretical frameworks or major analy-
ses. To be sure, the writings of Malthus were known to many of the early
sociologists. Comte and Spencer both alluded to the relationship of chang-
ing population density and society's means of coping with it but assigned
no significant weight to this concem. Arnong the Social Darwinists, only
Coste assigned population increase an important, even deterministic, place
in societal evolution, but his theory had few followers. Marxian thinking
was largely devoid of population concems since the proper organization of
society, Marx argued, would enable accommodation to any size of group.
It is in Durkheim's (b) work that sociology first recognized popu-
lation in an integral way. In his social morphology, he saw the role of
population increase and concentration as bringing about further social dif-
ferentiation. He applied quantitative data to social situations that gave
theoretical meaning to social facts. His approach was more than a classifi-
catory one. As he wrote,
. . . the sociologist's task is not simply to describe . . . diverse phenomena. . . .
He must contrive some explanation, that is to say, Iink such phenomena to their
causes and determine their functions. . . . Little by little, under the influence of
various forces, social elements arrange themselves in various forms. There are
international migrations which determine the condition of nations, the nature of
their functions; in fact, these bear a direct relationship to the expansive thrusts of
each society. There are currents of internal migration which determine the relative
importance of urban and rural populations. There are factors conditioning birth
and death and so affecting the number in the general population. The tendency of a
society to disperse or concentrate its population explains its density (1060).

Durkheim's disciple, Halbwachs, elaborated his master's thinking

by first asking:
If we can only speak of 'society' where we encounter collective concepts, if every
social structure must exhibit a mental content (whether irnplicit and semi-conscious
or fully developed and embodied in action), do we not, in working with population
facts pure and simple, depart from social reality and observe only mechanical and
wholly unconscious reactions or strictly instinctive activify, completely submerged
in the turbulent waves of living matter?
To which he himself responds,
. . . although the facts of population have a physical or vital aspect/ they are in
themselves of quite another nature: they are social facts. Their spatial and material
forms-extension, distribution, rate of growth, spatial displacements, etc.-imply
nonetheless a full role for thoughts, affective states, and impulses, of which we
sometimes are scarcely conscious (191-2).

While Durkheim influenced many twentieth century sociologists,

primarily through his studies of suicide and of religion, few picked up on
his and Halbwach's population-society linkages. A few of our eminent
366 / Social Forces Volume 61:2, Decemberl9S2

contemporaries-Hauser, Duncan and Pfautz, and Schnore ft)-have ac-

knowledged Durkheim and his students in social structural as well as
demographic analyses, but the French sociologists' tradition has not in-
fluenced many others in studying the sociology of population.
One can also note that Cooley, best known for his psychologically
oriented organic theory, and especially his concepts of "primary Soup"
and "looking-glass self" outlined what he called "territorial demography"
in an early study of transportation, but his interest in it was short-lived
(Schnore, a).
Other than Durkheim and Cooley, population did not figure signifi-
cantly in the work of the other classical European writers or early Ameri-
can sociologists. It reappeared, however, in neopositivist thinking which
stemmed from the nineteenth century quantitative approach of Qu6telet
and others. Dodd included population in his classificatory scheme of social
analysis. Zipf's "principle of least efforti' although applied to a broad
range of social phenomena, is most associated with its use in optimizing
the location of population in communities, and finds its extension in Stouf-
fer's concepfualization of "intervening opportunities."
I have already referred to human ecological thinking with its treat-
ment of population in a broader environmental context, as discussed by
Park and by Hawley. Yet, it is difficult to discover population treatments in
any of the current major schools of sociological thought-functional, dia-
lectical, phenomenological, exchange, or synthetic, theories. One excep-
tion is the Lenskis, whose synthetic approach to the sociocultural evolution
of societies explicitly recognizes the range of demographic processes.
Another way of assessing the importance given population within
sociology is to survey introductory sociology textbooks. Textbooks are in-
tended to present the scope and content of the field and identify important
concepts and components.
An examination of beginning sociology textbooks available to in-
structors today suggests that population is not considered an integral part
of sociological thinking. A few of the texts do not even refer to population
or mention it on a few discrete pages. Most commonly, the authors wiil
devote all or part of a chapter to the topic. \Alhere it is part, it is apt to be
combined with human ecology, environment, urbanization, health, or the
family. In either situation, it ordinarily receives one, or a combination, of
the following three treatments: (1) U.S. or world population is described
statistically in at least some of its dimensions; (2) Malthus and/or the de-
mographic transition is discussed as theory of population change; and (3)
population is viewed as a problem for society and/or population policy
efforts (particularly in regard to fertility control) are cited and evaluated. In
short, the textbooks approach population, at best, in a piecemeal, unimag-
inative, and largely nonsociological manner. Moreover chapters on popu-
 Perspectives on Population I 867

lation are usually found near the end of the book and, like the human
appendix, are accorded a physical but nonfunctional spot in sociological
analysis.
TWo textbooks in sociology which can be considered exceptions to
these generalizations have been out of print for some time and are not in
general use in introductory sociology courses. I refer to Kingsley Davis,
Human Society and Everett Wilson's Sociology: Rules, Roles, Relationships.
Although Davis treated population in more of a demographic than a soci-
ological framework in the two chapters devoted wholly to the topic, he is
exceedingly analytical and integrative in his approach. Wilson deals with
demographic conditions affecting the social order at the outset of his vol-
ume and reconsiders its importance atvarious points throughout the book.
It is also of interest to contemplate how population has fared in the
discipline's principal professional establishment, the American Sociologi-
cal Association. One rnight cite the number of persons with strong popula-
tion interests who have served as Presidents of the Association. Included
would be Fairchild, Hankins, Vance, Dorothy Thomas, Hauser, and Haw-
ley, all of whom happened also to have been Presidents of the Population
Association of America. Of the total membership of the Association, over
6 percent identified population as their area of competence in1975. These
speak of a rninor but healthy constituency.
Despite this type of structural representation, one can argue that the
subject matter of population has been increasingly neglected and poorly
understood within the Association. Over the past dozen or so years, while
the number of sessions on the annual meeting program has been expand-
ing the proportion devoted to population topics has been declining. (The
one exceptional year was when Hawley was President and program or-
ganz,er.)
On another plane, the extension some years ago of sections rep-
resenting subfields of sociology within the Association provided an op-
portunity for members with special interests to convene separately at the
annual meeting as well as guarantee an additional number of section-
related sessions on the program. Section designation required a minimum
of. 200 members subscribing to the section and paying section dues. So-
ciology of education was one of the first areas to be designated section
status. A Section on the Sociology of Population was approved in1977,
The title was consciously chosen to convey the idea that members were
interested in the section activities as sociologists rather than as demog-
raphers, and the significance of it was conveyed to the Association office
along with the official Section by-laws. Yet, to this day, the Association
generally omits the "Sociology o(' part of the title in its publications and
other communications. Population is still viewed as the sociological or-
phan. There are now however, close to 400 members of that Section.
368 / Social Forces Volume 61:2, December 1982

The purpose of these examples is not to disparage the Association or

the discipline but rather to point out that the study of population is not
accorded its true place within sociology.

Sociology's Logical Interests in Population

How, then, should population subject matter be integrated within the field
of sociology? Are there models we can point to that assist in achieving this
goal? Can we differentiate the sociological from the demographic perspec-
tive on population and yet enrich sociological knowledge in the realm of
population?
One problem in the past has been the tendency of many sociologists
to eschew the study of population because demography was the discipline
that examined such issues. But most sociological topics have links to other
disciplines. For example, psychologists, biologists, and sociologists can
each bring their perspectives to bear on deviant behavior, on what leads
persons to commit certain kinds of acts which society deems inappropriate.
In analyzing studies in this area, sociologists do not feel compelled to offer
psychological or biological explanations. They are best equipped to identify
social elements in the process and they offer sociological explanations.
It is most proper for sociologists to focus the sociological perspective
on demographic matters. In trying to account for social behavior with re-
gard to fertility, mortality, and mobility, and in attempting to understand
the basis for changing demographic structures, sociologists should employ
the conceptual apparatus of their discipline. Since these demographic con-
cems are not basically different from other social concems which occupy
the attention of the vast array of sociological specialists, sociologists should
try to relate their field's basic concepts to population variables.
Certainly, some notable attempts have been made in these direc-
tions. Ryder argued that the "concept of a population, which is closely
allied with the concept of a society, is brought closer to the concept of an
individual when the latter is viewed as a member of a cohort aggregate
which is in turn a constituent of a population. Thus one avenue is provided
in sociology for the perplexing questions of the relationships between the
individual and the societ;r" (460). Goldscheider advanced the notion that
populations and societies are systems which are interlocked. Hence,
changes in one system have impacts on the other. Ford and DeJong like-
wise emphasized element and system traits and processes which involved
population, social, and cultural variables, and suggested identifying these
in particular demographic situations.
Perhaps the most specific and detailed approach to interrelating
population and social variables has been offered by Broom and Selznick in
their introductory textbook. They present a taxonomy cross-classifying 9
 Perspectives on Population / 359

"eleme-nts of sociological analysis," including population and ecology, with

a number of institutional areas and social processes.2 The discuJiion of
population itself has the standard faults of sociological textbooks men-
tioned earlier, but some relationships of population and social factors are
suggested and illustrated. unfortunately, the examples given relate princi-
pally to census data in regard to the social area and somgof the illustrations
are lacking in substance. Furthermore, population is not systematically
linked with other sociological elements. Therefore, the taxonomy gives ui
only a discrete and partial picture of population-society linkages.
A more comprehensive approach might very well begin with a ma-
trix of sociological and population factors (see Thble 1). The former might
TAbIE CLASSIFICATIONS FOR A MATRIX OF TRADITIONAL SOCIOLOGICAL AND POPULATION
FACTORS '.
Sociological Factors Population Factors

Cul-ture Population size

Values and attitudes Age and sex
Nonns Morbidity
Statuses and roles Morta1i.ty
Social-ization Fertility control-
Minorities Fertility
Social stratificatlon International migration
Conmunity Internal rnigration
Conplex organization Local residential mobility
Collective behavior Nonresidentj.al geographic nobllity
Soclal- control- Population redistrlbution
Soclal d.eviance 0ther population characteristics
Fanily Denographic chaage
Education

Econorqy

Religion
Science

Goverrrnent

Leisure
Social change
 370 / Social Forces Volume 61:2, December 1982

include those concepts usually found in sociological textbooks, such as

culture, values and attitudes, norms, statuses and roles, socialization, mi-
norities, social stratification, community, complex organization, collective
behavior, social control, social deviance, the institutional areas of family,
education, economy, religion, science, government, and leisure, and social
change. The latter might encompass the concepts typically found in de-
mographic textbooks, such as population size, age and sex, morbidity,
mortality, fertility control, fertility, international migration, internal migra-
tion, local residential mobility, nonresidential geographic mobility, popu-
lation redistribution, other population characteristics, and demographic
change.
This notion is so simple that it may seem sophomorish; yet I believe
it has abundant merit. The cells of the matrix sensitize us to a host of social-
demographic associations that beg study. It is understood that relationships
implicit in cells of the matrix can be elaborated to specify the interaction
with other categories of the matrix. These associations, of course, could be
spurious or causally related.
Analysis of such relationships, using available or newly collected
data, could lead to at least low-level generalizations which might feed into
broader theoretical frameworks. This matrix approach serves only as a
means of heightening awareness of the myriad associations of basic social
and demographic patterns and invites the involvement of nondemographic
sociologists in areas of research for which they have training and skills-.
Three simple examples can be cited of research areas of this type
which have recently developed but which should have been in the province
of sociologists long ago. The first is what is now being called population
socialization. The concept of socialization has long been used by sociolo-
gists in the study of personality formation, occupational selection, mar-
riage and family life, various social roles and organizational groups, and
even of immigrant adjustment to a new land. Yet, until recently there had
been no concern with the socialization process as it operated to guide
young people into the values, attitudes, and behaviors associated with de-
cisions about family size goals, using contraception, moving away from
families, attaching priorities to health, taking mortal risks, and a variety of
other population-related phenomena. A second example is of changing
age composition on the shape of a society's social stratification configu-
ration. This configuration has often been looked at in terms of a number
of social, economic, and political processes, but rarely in terms of demo-
graphic processes. Population changes can have considerable impact on
the size and differentiation of social strata. A third example is of the impact
of fertility declines and population redistribution on the changing needs
for educational establishments and personnel. We are in the midst of such
a dynamic in education today. I fear that the lack of foresight in detecting
 Perspectives on Population / 371

demographic shifts and interpreting their educational consequences in the

past will be repeated in the future.
Numerous other studies of these types, many of a quite novel but
important nature, can be suggested by consideration of the joint function-
ing of the social and demographic categories. Many other neglected re-
search areas can be seen in an examination of the matrix.

Conclusions

The gist of my remarks should be taken for their heuristic value. I have
tried to show that there is a largely uncharted area of undertaking within
the scope of the sociology of population. More importantly, sociologists
need to adopt a sociological perspective in communicating population
structures and processes to their students, and they should involve them-
selves in sociology of population research topics which have previously
been relegated to, and often inept$ handled by, demographers.
In a world in which population dynamics are made real to us day in
and day out, it is not sufficient for sociologists to routinely mimic the cen-
sus or vital statistician's descriptions of populations, or to decry the eco-
nomic or environmental plight of communities resulting from population
increase, or to dwell on what old man Malthus had to say nearly two cen-
turies ago, or to leave the subject of population along the wayside of socio-
logical analysis because it is something to be dealt with by demographers.
The challenge is out to sociologists far and wide, both those who
have concemed themselves with population topics before and those who
have not, to examine the agenda I have placed before you. The fruit of all
our work in this regard will brighten the cornucopia of sociological knowl-
edge in the years ahead and establish within sociology a tradition and
responsibility it has long avoided.

Notes
1. It should not be surprising, however, that demographers are older, on the average, than
other sociologists. There is hardly any exposure of students at the secondary school oi under-
graduate college level to demography, and many social scientists move into the field after
having spent some time in other areas of their original discipline. This tendency prompted
Rupert Vance to remark that demographers were just sociologists broken down by age and

2. Wilbert Moore has also referred to Broom and Selznick's textbook as a model for studying
sociology-demography interrelationships.

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