Required Core Course (for Training Program and Minor)
POP 5301 – Population Methods and Issues in the US and Global South
This course surveys population trends and issues and teaches basic demographic methods. Topics include fertility, mortality, and the demographic transition; population growth and the environment; infant mortality; sexuality and the control of fertility; US trends in family structure; and aging. The course is aimed at Master's and Ph.D. students but serious upper- level undergraduates are welcome. The course will be "web enhanced" but the home page will be available only to registered students.
Elective Courses (for Population Studies Minor)
FW 5051 Analysis of Populations
Factors involved in regulation, growth, general dynamics of populations. Data needed to describe populations, population growth, population models, regulatory mechanisms. Check for prerequisites for this course. 4 cr.
GERO 5103 Aging and Society
An examination of the broad range of topics and issues related to aging. Consideration of how the processes of aging affect individuals, groups, cohorts, and societies by drawing from research in sociology, psychology, gerontology, and health sciences. Comparisons are made of the processes of aging in U.S. and other countries. 2 cr.
HIST 8970 Advanced Research in Quantitative History: Demographic Transition
This course focuses on the transition from high birth and death rates in the United States and Europe in the late nineteenth century to low birth and death rates in the early twentieth century. We will examine early demographic transition theory, recent criticisms, and new and classic studies of the transition and its causes. Although theories of demographic transition have not fared well, the fact remains: life expectancy nearly doubled between 1870 and 1930 while fertility fell from almost 6 children per woman to less than 3. Approximately half of the course will be dedicated to the mortality transition (and the related epidemiological and health transitions) and half dedicated to the fertility transition. Topics will include the public health movement, medicine, contraception, and abortion. A few weeks will be dedicated to comparing demographic transitions in Asia and elsewhere to those in the United States and Europe and the possibility of an on-going "second demographic transition." 4 cr.
HMED 8025 Measuring Historical Mortality and Morbidity
This class is a graduate level overview of the quantitative study of health in the past. We begin with an overview of relevant demographic theory and then examine the social science and historical literature measuring changes in sickness and death since the 1900s. Depending on student interest, the class may focus on a collaborative research project. The geographic focus of the class will be North America and Western Europe with student interest shaping the focus from year to year. 3 cr.
PA 5043 Economic and Demographic Data Analysis
This course aims at developing quantitative data analysis skills in the areas of economic and demographic analysis of small geographic areas. The methods covered are used to analyze the structure of regional and local economies, such as location quotient analysis and the economic base model, and to analyze the structure of the population and project population change over time. Familiarity with Excel is assumed. 2 cr.
PA 5281 Immigrants, Urban Planning and Policymaking in the U.S.
Social, political, economic experiences of contemporary U.S. immigrants. Draws from sociology, economics, demography, political science, public affairs. Local government policies/plans. Cities/suburbs as contexts for immigrants. Interactions between immigrant communities/urban planners/policymakers. 3 cr.
PA 5401 Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy
Nature/extent of poverty/inequality in the United States, causes/consequences, impact of government programs/policies. Extent/causes of poverty/inequality in other developed/developing countries. 3 cr. Population studies area of concentration: economic demography
PA 8312 Analysis of Discrimination
Introduces students of policy analysis and other applied social sciences to tools for measuring and detecting discrimination in market and nonmarket contexts. Application of modern tools of labor econometrics and race relations research to specific problems of market and nonmarket discrimination. 4 cr. Population studies area of concentration: economic demography.
PA 8331 Economic Demography
Classical theory, advanced econometric methods, recent empirical work, and available datasets for research in economic demography. Topics include the economics of mortality, fertility, migration, marriage, women's labor supply, intra-family bargaining, and age structure. Students develop critical analysis and academic discourse skills through in-depth discussions and replications of papers, presentations, referee-style writing assignments, and a term paper. Prerequisite: Grad-level economic theory (PA 5021 or equiv) and econometrics (PA 5033 or equiv) and instructor permission. 3 cr. Population studies area of concentration: economic demography
POP 8093 Directed Study
In Fall 2025, graduate students may attend a joint 3-credit University of Wisconsin/University of Minnesota course titled Demographic Techniques II, taught by Dr. Christine Schwartz. UMN students must enroll in POP 8093 Directed Study to attend this course via zoom, alongside UW graduate students.
Description: This course builds on students’ previous demographic research training in three ways. We derive and develop the continuous-time extension of lifetable quantities. We grow the state-space in which we work and the types of possible transitions we consider. We cover a series of additional demographic models that reveal (1) how populations change as a function of the interaction of multiple demographic processes, (2) how aggregate population change and individual lifecourse experiences are connected, and (3) how demographic phenomena can be modeled in the absence of perfect information. Throughout the semester, we will consider how knowledge in the social sciences can be advanced with the tools of formal demography. As a secondary goal, the course is designed to augment students’ data acquisition, management, and visualization skills through application of these methods in real-world inquiry.
University of Minnesota graduate students who wish to attend Demographic Techniques with Dr. Christine Schwartz in Fall 2025 should contact [email protected] to receive an enrollment permission number. Enrolled UMN students will receive 3 credits. The course will take place Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:30 to 10:45 CT.
POP 8551 (SOC 8551) Life Course Inequality and Health
Central concepts and premises of life course analysis as applied to intersocietal (comparative), intrasocietal (socioeconomic status, race, and gender), and historical variability; institutional patterning of life course (family, education, work, the polity); deviance and criminal careers; changes in the self; and methodological strategies. 3 cr. Population studies area of concentration: family and life course demography.
POP 8841 Advanced Topics in Research Methods - Advanced Demographic Methods: Sex, Death & Mobility: Population Modeling
Populations are made up of people whose lives are changing all the time. This course covers population modeling techniques from the demographic tradition, organized around life transitions. These techniques excel at describing social and epidemiological changes occurring along multiple time scales simultaneously; identifying the inequalities lurking beneath population averages; relating multiple dimensions of population structure; and figuring out what population a research question is really about. Check prerequisites for this course. 3 cr.
PubH 6370 Social Epidemiology
This course aims to introduce public health and other interested graduate students to the sub-discipline of social epidemiology, including theory and methods. Social epidemiology is the branch of epidemiology that consider s how social interaction and purposive human activity affect health. 2 cr. Population studies area of concentration: public health population studies, and family and life course demography.
PubH 6605 Sexual, Reproductive and Perinatal Health
Epidemiology, programs, services, and policies. Social, cultural, psychological, physiologic, environmental, economic, and political factors that affect reproductive health, pregnancy, and childbearing. Check prerequisites for this course. Population studies area of concentration: public health population studies, and family and life course demography.
PubH 6845 Using Demographic Data for Policy Analysis
Practical instruction in posing researchable policy questions, locating existing demographic data, converting data into usable file format, understanding documentation, analyzing data, and communicating findings according to standards of the professional policy community. Check prerequisites for this course. 3 cr. Population studies area of concentration: all areas
PSY 5960 Topics in Psychology: Race and the Life Course
In this course, students will review racial, ethnic, and cultural (hereafter: REC) diversity in child and youth development and how this diversity influences their lives. Students will learn about the long history and recent resurgence of research into the role of REC contexts for children and adolescents. This research often challenges popular notions while revealing broader themes regarding the role of REC in development.
SOC 8607 Migration and Migrants in Demographic Perspective
This course provides a demographic point of entry into major theoretical, methodological, empirical, and substantive debates on international and internal migration (as a type of transition) and migrants (as a status or type of actor) drawing from such disciplines as economics, geography, public policy, sociology, and statistics. 3 cr.
Related Course of Interest
POP 5000 Demography & Aging Seminars and Workshops
The Minnesota Population Center and the Life Course Center’s weekly Demography and Aging Seminar exposes students to cutting-edge research from scholars based at the University of Minnesota and throughout the world. The Friday workshops focus on professional development and skills building such as learning to write a conference paper abstract, or present work in progress or give feedback in Paper Hatchlings. Enrolled graduate students must attend each Monday seminar (hybrid format) and Friday workshop (in-person only). 1 cr.
Monday Seminars (hybrid): https://pop.umn.edu/events/seminar-series
Friday Workshops (in-person only): https://pop.umn.edu/events/mpc-workshop.