The undergraduate minor in Demography provides an opportunity to combine a traditional major, typically in one of the social sciences, with specialized training in population studies.
Although there is no undergraduate major in Demography, seniors may take graduate courses with the consent of the instructor.
Declaring the Minor
For information on how to declare the minor, please contact the department.
Students who have a strong interest in an area of study outside their major often decide to complete a minor program. These programs have set requirements and are noted officially on the transcript in the memoranda section, but are not noted on diplomas.
General Guidelines
All minors must be declared no later than one semester before a student's Expected Graduation Term (EGT). If the semester before EGT is fall or spring, the deadline is the last day of RRR week. If the semester before EGT is summer, the deadline is the final Friday of Summer Sessions. To declare a minor, contact the department advisor for information on requirements, and the declaration process.
All courses taken to fulfill the minor requirements below must be taken for graded credit.
A minimum of three of the upper division courses taken to fulfill the minor requirements must be completed at UC Berkeley.
A minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 is required for courses used to fulfill the minor requirements.
Courses used to fulfill the minor requirements may be applied toward the Seven-Course Breadth requirement, for Letters & Science students.
No more than one upper division course may be used to simultaneously fulfill requirements for a student's major and minor programs.
All minor requirements must be completed prior to the last day of finals during the semester in which you plan to graduate. If you cannot finish all courses required for the minor by that time, please see a College of Letters & Science adviser.
All minor requirements must be completed within the unit ceiling. (For further information regarding the unit ceiling, please see the College Requirements tab.)
No substitutions for this course are allowed, unless the course is not being offered in the current academic year. In that case, written approval of a valid substitute course must be obtained and submitted along with the L&S Minor Completion Form.
2
Similar upper division courses of at least three units may be substituted with consent of the department.
3
Similar upper division courses of at least three units may be substituted with consent of the department.
Courses
Demography
Terms offered: Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2018 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2011
This course provides an accessible introduction to the social science of demography. The course is organized around cases in which population issues raise policy or ethical dilemmas (example: China's one child policy). Through these cases, students will learn how demographers use models and data to acquire knowledge about population. Throughout the course, students will also learn to read, interpret, evaluate, and produce tabular and graphical representations of population data. Fundamentals of Population Science: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-1 hours of discussion per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-2.5 hours of discussion per week 8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture and 0-2 hours of discussion per week 10 weeks - 4.5-4.5 hours of lecture and 0-1.5 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This course will cover the small but important part of the rich history human migration that deals with the population of the United
States--focusing on the 20th and 21st Centuries. We will use the tools of DS8 to answer specific questions that relate to the themes
of this course:
(1) Why do people migrate?
(2) Is immigration good or bad for receiving (and sending) countries?
(3) How do immigrants adapt and how do societies change in response?
In addition to scientific questions, this course will also address the demographic and political history of immigration in the US --
an understanding of which is crucial for understanding both the broad contours of US history and the particular situation in which
we find ourselves today.
Student Learning Outcomes: This course will enhance the experience of DS8 by challenging students to use the tools of DS8 to address current questions with real data. By accessing and using much larger and messier datasets than are used in the main course, students will gain technical skills as well as confidence in their ability to use data to answer questions.
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Prerequisites and Restrictions (if any): Corequisite or Prerequisite: Foundations of Data Science (COMPSCI C8 / INFO C8 / STAT C8). This course is a Data Science connector course and is meant to be taken concurrent with or after COMPSCI C8/ INFO C8 / STAT C8. Students may take more than one Data Science connector course if they wish, concurrent with or after having taken the C8 course
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-2 hours of lecture, 0-1 hours of discussion, and 0-1 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternate method of final assessment during regularly scheduled final exam group (e.g., presentation, final project, etc.).
Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
Measures and methods of Demography. Life tables, fertility and nuptiality measures, age pyramids, population projection, measures of fertility control. Introduction to Population Analysis: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-1 hours of discussion per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-2.5 hours of discussion per week 8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture and 0-2 hours of discussion per week 10 weeks - 4.5-4.5 hours of lecture and 0-1.5 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
Introduction to population issues and the field of demography, with emphasis on historical patterns of population growth and change during the industrial era. Topics covered include the demographic transition, resource issues, economic development, the environment, population control, family planning, birth control, family and gender, aging, intergenerational transfers, and international migration. Sex, Death, and Data: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 1 or 3 or 3AC or consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-2 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Not yet offered
Fundamentals of demographic analysis of health and mortality with a special focus on global public health challenges including those induced by climate change. Class will focus on essential concepts from demography and public health, global and historical shifts in mortality and morbidity patterns, and the determinants of health and mortality over the life course, including environmental determinants. Students’ will develop their own research project related to health and mortality using real-world demographic data. Students will learn to interpret, construct, and calculate common demographic and public health indicators, and will develop a basic toolkit for analyzing health and mortality data. Demography of Deaths, Diseases, and Disasters: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Introductory statistics course and some experience with a programming language (preferably R), or consent of the instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-1 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
The history of the United States is the history of migration. The course covers the evolution of the American population from about 20,000 BC with the goal of understanding the interdependent roles of history and demography. As an American cultures class, special attention is given to the experiences of 18th- and 19th-century African and European immigrants and 20th- and 21st-century Asian and Latin American immigrants. Two substantial laboratory assignments; facility with a spreadsheet program is assumed. The American Immigrant Experience: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
Special topics in demography. Topics may include the demography of specific world regions, race and ethnicity, population and policy, and population and environment and similiar specialized or new topics in the field of demography will be covered. Special Topics in Demography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2015
Despite our astonishing demographic success as a species, humans are haunted by the idea of apocalyptic demise. This course explores scientific and cultural narratives of population catastrophe particularly as presented in film. Noah's flood; nuclear annihilation; overpopulation; and climate change all raise the question: Does human nature carry within it the seeds of our inevitable destruction? In this course, we will grapple with both the science and the art in which this question is embedded. Population Apocalypse in Film and Science: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2007
Examination of the impact of policies of state intervention and public benefit programs on poor children and families. Introduction to child and family policy, and study of specific issue areas, such as income transfer programs, housing, health care, and child abuse. Impact of Government Policies on Poor Children and Families: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: This course may be applied to the Demography major.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2012, Fall 2008, Spring 2005
How are families and households organized around the world? Which aspects of household and family vary, and which are constant? What are the relationships between household and family on the one hand and the political, economic, or broad social patterns on the other? This course examines all of these questions, taking historical and contemporary examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Family and Household in Comparative Perspective: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Sociology 1, 3, 3AC or consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
A general introduction to economic demography, addressing the following kinds of questions: What are the economic consequences of immigration to the U.S.? Will industrial nations be able to afford the health and pension costs of the aging populations? How has the size of the baby boom affected its economic well being? Why has fertility been high in Third World countries? In industrial countries, why is marriage postponed, divorce high, fertility so low, and extramarital fertility rising? What are the economic and environmental consequences of rapid population growth? Economic Demography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Economics 1 or 2
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-1 hours of discussion per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-2.5 hours of discussion per week 8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture and 0-2 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Instructor: Lee
Formerly known as: Demography C175, Economics C175
Terms offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2019
The science of social networks focuses on measuring, modeling, and understanding the different ways that people are connected to one another. We will use a broad toolkit of theories and methods drawn from the social, natural, and mathematical sciences to learn what a social network is, to understand how to work with social network data, and to illustrate some of the ways that social networks can be useful in theory and in practice. We will see that network ideas are powerful enough to be used everywhere from UNAIDS, where network models help epidemiologists prevent the spread of HIV, to Silicon Valley, where data scientists use network ideas to build products that enable people all across the globe to connect with one another.
Prerequisites: Suggested: Introduction to Statistics (Computer Science/Information/Statistics C8 or "Data 8"), Pre-calculus (Mathematics 32), Python, or consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 0-1 hours of discussion per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5-7.5 hours of lecture and 0-2.5 hours of discussion per week 8 weeks - 6-6 hours of lecture and 0-2 hours of discussion per week 10 weeks - 4.5-4.5 hours of lecture and 0-1.5 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Spring 2019
Undergraduate research by small groups. Enrollment is restricted by regulations governing 198 courses. Directed Group Study: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 60 units; good academic standing
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-3 hours of directed group study per week
Summer: 8 weeks - 1.5-7.5 hours of directed group study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Demography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
William Dow, Professor. Health economics, global health, economic demography. Research Profile
Dennis Feehan, Assistant Professor. Demography, social networks, sociology, statistics, sampling, mortality, computational social science, migration, Facebook.
Joshua R. Goldstein, Professor. Fertility, marriage, social demography, historical demography, population aging, formal demography. Research Profile
Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, Professor. Culture, population, social action, intentions, Africa, gender, fertility, marriage. Research Profile
Mara Loveman, Professor.
Ayesha Mahmud, Assistant Professor.
Carl Mason, Adjunct Assistant Professor.
Lecturers
Leora Lawton, Lecturer. Comparative and historical sociology, political sociology, ethnoracial politics, development, demography, Latin America. Research Profile
Emeritus Faculty
Eugene A. Hammel, Professor Emeritus. Kinship, social anthropology, stratification, statistical and formal analysis, computer applications, peasant society and culture, demography, Balkans. Research Profile
Ronald D. Lee, Professor Emeritus. Economics, evolutionary theory, mathematical demography, population aging, intergenerational transfers, economic demography, life history theory, population forecasting, national transfer accounts. Research Profile
Kenneth Wachter, Professor Emeritus. Mathematical demography stochastic models, simulation, biodemography, federal statistical system. Research Profile
John R. Wilmoth, Professor Emeritus. Demography, sociology, methodological research, longevity, life expectancy, mortality differentials, familial resemblance, mortality and life expectancy forcasting, historical population trends, world population growth, international migration forecasting. Research Profile
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