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6 - Feminist demography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Nancy E. Riley
Affiliation:
Bowdoin College, Maine
James McCarthy
Affiliation:
University of New Hampshire
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Summary

Today, as books in feminist anthropology, sociology, and political science proliferate, the term “feminist demographer” remains an oxymoron.

(Greenhalgh 1995: 602)

The experience of scholars attempting to incorporate gender into demographic analyses is illustrative of the difficulties of using interpretive approaches in the study of population. The importance of doing so underscores the arguments we are making in this book: broadening the way that we look at population issues and measures will allow a fuller, richer account of population behavior and change. In this chapter, we examine the ways that demography understands, measures, and uses gender in its analyses and interpretations of those analyses, and in its overall understanding of population change. We discuss the reasons why doing work on gender is difficult within the current confines of demography and the ways in which adding richer gender perspectives could contribute to our understanding of demographic processes.

Gender in demography? A brief account of the history

While demography has neglected many issues of gender, there has been no lack of work on women, most obviously because of the heavy focus on fertility. Even early in the history of demography there was a certain attention to the lives of women, especially in fertility studies (Watkins 1993). Many more recent studies include some measure of “women's status” within their overall analysis of demographic dynamics.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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  • Feminist demography
  • Nancy E. Riley, Bowdoin College, Maine, James McCarthy, University of New Hampshire
  • Book: Demography in the Age of the Postmodern
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165204.006
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  • Feminist demography
  • Nancy E. Riley, Bowdoin College, Maine, James McCarthy, University of New Hampshire
  • Book: Demography in the Age of the Postmodern
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165204.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Feminist demography
  • Nancy E. Riley, Bowdoin College, Maine, James McCarthy, University of New Hampshire
  • Book: Demography in the Age of the Postmodern
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165204.006
Available formats
×