Population Studies (Z036)

Graduate Certificate Program
College: Behavioral and Social Sciences

Abstract

The Certificate Program in Population Studies provides interdisciplinary training in demographic methods, theory, and research for graduate students in departments affiliated with the Maryland Population Research Center (MPRC), culminating in a Certificate in Population Studies for graduate students who complete the required coursework. Historically, the Population Sciences were born out of the discipline of Demography, a field that boomed during the 1950s around fears of a world-wide population explosion and its consequences. Demography was taught largely within departments of Sociology. Today the field has changed a great deal and researchers worry about issues of low fertility and underpopulation as much as overpopulation. What demographers of the 1950s missed in their dire predictions were unprecedented behavioral changes of families to changing economic circumstances, changing social pressures, and changing ideas of what constituted a family. Today, the core of the population sciences is not forecasting population growth and its components (mortality, fertility and immigration) but instead understanding what economic, social, and ideational factors affect these components and how changing mortality, fertility, and immigration may affect other family choices. With the growing emphasis on choice and on the consequences of population change, and with the shift from being a field focusing on forecasting to one focusing on understanding causal relationships, training across several fields of study has become necessary.

Contact

Joan Kahn, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Sociology
3137 Parren J Mitchell Art-Sociology Building
3834 Campus Drive
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Telephone: 301.405.6412
Email: jkahn@umd.edu

Judith Hellerstein, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Economics
3115J Tydings Hall
7343 Preinkert Drive
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Telephone: 301.405.3545
Email: hellerst@umd.edu

Website:  https://www.popcenter.umd.edu

Courses: See interdisciplinary listing

The Certificate Program is offered to students enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the University of Maryland College Park. Please contact your department for more information.

Application Deadlines

Other Deadlines: Please visit the program website at http://www.popcenter.umd.edu

The Maryland Population Research Center (MPRC) is a multidisciplinary center dedicated to the support and advancement of population research. We provide a research environment conducive to interdisciplinary collaboration among our diverse Faculty Associates and to the development of young scholars through cross-disciplinary training and mentoring. Our proximity to Washington DC allows us to develop strong relationships with the U.S. federal statistical agencies and with policy communities. These ties provide our researchers access to under-utilized or restricted-use government data, allow them to partner with agencies on research and data improvement projects, and allow them to provide policy makers with non-partisan, scientific evidence on population-related issues. MPRC provides work and collaboration spaces, computers loaded with specialized software for statistical analysis, SAS, Stata, and other training courses, and administrative and financial support for associated graduate students.