人口学方法的传承与演变——兼论中国人口学学科发展

Inheritance and Evolution of Demographic Methods:And on the Development of Demography in China

人口学方法的传承体现在人口分析和人口研究两个方面,前者聚焦人口系统内部各要素之间的关系,后者注重人口系统内、外部各要素之间的关系及互动机制。人口分析方法着重回答“是什么”的问题,方法的独特性塑造了人口学作为社会科学中偏重实证分析的学科属性;人口研究方法着重回答“为什么”和“会怎样”的问题,方法的交叉性使人口学成为一门兼容并蓄的开放性学科。从人口分析和人口研究两个方面对人口学方法的传承进行系统梳理,特别关注其在新形势下面临的挑战及相应的演变,认为由于服务于社会经济发展的应用性特点贯穿人口学发展的始终,当代中国的社会变革和实践创新,为人口学方法的发展提供了强大动力,为人口学学科发展展示了广阔空间。

The inheritance of demographic methods is embodied in two aspects,demographic analysis and population studies.the former one focuses on the relations among the internal elements of the population system,while the latter one focuses on the relations and interactive mechanism between the internal and external factors of the population system.The methods of demographic analysis are devoted to answering the question of“what is it?”,the uniqueness of which makes demography stand out in social sciences as an academic discipline that emphasizes empirical analysis.The methods of population studies mainly answer the questions of“why”and“how”,and the confluence of methods from various related disciplines makes demography an open and inclusive academic discipline.This paper systematically sorts out the inheritance of demographic methods from the above two aspects,pays close attention to the evolution of the methods in response to challenges encountered under the new situation.It concludes that due to the characteristics of demography of serving social and economic development,contemporary China’s social transformation and innovation in practice provides a strong incentive for the development of demographic methods which shows the vast space for the development of demography as an academic discipline.