Demography of the Global South

This research unit focuses on demographic dynamics in Southern populations, what drives those dynamics, and the issues they raise.

The unit s 2021-2025 scientific program centers on 1) family, fertility, social policy; 2) health and mortality; and 3) connections between climate, environment, and population. A primary DEMOSUD research concern is the particular situation of Africa, where demographic growth, though decreasing, remains higher than elsewhere, with fertility rates continuing high in particular regions and slow progress in public health; a related subject of DEMOSUD research is the continent’s complex migration systems. The unit’s research projects, usually conducted in the framework of international collaboration agreements, target particular contexts and population categories to apprehend internal dynamics, emerging behaviors, and impediments to change by way of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. They also make use of international comparisons based on information from national and international databases (including EDS and population censuses), in some cases combined or matched with environmental data to produce detailed analyses of current developments. Consequently, questions of data production and quality constitute an important component of unit activities.