The French School of Demography: Contextualizing Demographic Analysis

demographic analysis, according to Pressat’s Dictionary of Demography, is “a form of statistical analysis which employs, for the most part, a modest array of mathematical and statistical techniques to deal with the data produced by censuses, surveys and vital registration systems” (1985: 52). in this essay we explore the methodological advances in this field between the 1960s and the late 1990s. we argue, against the grain of the standard definition of the subject, that these efforts were directed at refining demographic analysis in a quest for scientific purity, to the exclusion of other objectives. as Greenhalgh puts it, despite what alternative histories of the field might suggest, “the conventional rhetoric of steady scientific progress continues to dominate discussions of the creation of population thought” (2012: 122). demography, we believe, has paid a high price for this narrowing of focus. epistemological questions such as the conceptualization of the individual and the treatment of culture have been eluded; ideological biases have entered. we argue that an alternative paradigm, more open to interdisciplinarity, should be explored. our attention is primarily directed to France and to the so-called French school of demography, which the national institute for demographic Studies (ined) very early claimed to personify. as is known, under the leadership of louis Henry the department of historical demography at ined achieved major methodological progress with regard to the knowledge of populations in the pre-census era; the department of psycho-sociology, successively headed by Jean Stoetzel, alain Girard, and Henri léridon, completed large socio-demographic surveys. However, another influential part of that school proclaimed the uniqueness of its contribution to the heart of the discipline, “pure” demographic analysis. it was defined as the study of population dynamics, paying