The 2024 Berkeley Workshop on Formal Demography (BWFD) was held in person from June 3-7, 2024, with funding from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R25 HD083136) and co-sponsored by the Berkeley Population Center.
The theme of the 2024 BWFD was migration and formal demography. The lectures, exercises, and research talks covered some of the central concepts of formal demography, with a special focus on the applications of these methods to the analysis of fertility and mortality as well as population dynamics. In addition, this year’s special emphasis topic was on the demography of immigration, which encompasses the influence of migration on population growth and age-structure as well as the fertility and mortality of immigrant populations.
Target population: The workshops are aimed both at those with prior demographic training and those who have not studied demography but already have quantitative skills in another area.
Primary Instructors: Ayesha Mahmud, Dennis Feehan, Robert Chung, Department of Demography, UC Berkeley.
Curriculum: We used the fundamental tools of formal demography such as stable population theory and the mathematics of migration and other demographic outcomes, to understand the demography of migration and migrants. Note: All exercises assume familiarity with R, RStudio notebooks, and introductory demography concepts, such as the life table. We recommend starting with the pre-workshop notes and instructions and pre-workshop exercises.
Day 1 – Population Dynamics
Day 2 – Stable Population Theory
Day 3 – Replacement Migration
Day 4 – Research Talks
- Jakub Bijak: “Recent Advances in Migration Modelling” [Recording]
- Jeff Passel: “Estimates of unauthorized immigrants: Methods, data and assumptions” [Slides] [Handout] [Reading 1] [Reading 2] [Reading 3] [Recording]
- Jennifer Van Hook: “The Population Dynamics and Demographic Impact of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population in the United States” [Reading 1] [Reading 2] [Recording]
- Josh Blumenstock: “Migration and the Value of Social Networks” [Recording]
- Fernando Riosmena: “The Quantum & Tempo of Fertility at the Height & End of the Great Mexican Emigration Era” [Reading 1] [Reading 2] [Recording]
Day 5 – Research Talks
- Erik Vickstrom: “Immigrant–native pay gap driven by lack of access to high-paying jobs, not within-job inequality”
- Julia Gelatt: “Measuring Shifting Immigration Trends” [Recording]
- Tod Hamilton: “Lessons from A Century of Black Migration”
- Panel on Formal Demography: Jenna Nobles, Monica Alexander, and Emilio Zagheni