Rethinking the Demographic Moment

Konzept und Organisation: Martin Geyer, München, und Cornelius Torp, Halle

Change of venue!
Thursday: FRIAS House, Albertstr. 19, Seminarraum EG
Friday: Rektorat, Fahnenbergplatz, Seminarraum 6. OG

"Rethinking the Demographic Moment"

Program (PDF)

The term “demographic moment” refers to the 1960s and the 1970s when issues of demography (re)entered political, social and economic debates on a worldwide scale. Since the late 1950s, various scenarios were flourishing of an impending overpopulation in the developing countries. Shortly thereafter, equally alarming scenarios evolved of a population decline in many industrial countries. Diverse as they were, these demographic challenges differed in the way they were perceived and with regard to the solutions proposed. At the same time, the scenarios of overpopulation and of population decline were phenomena closely intertwined in a transnational debate among a variety of global and international actors.

The proposed workshop centers around five questions at the focus of both current academic research and political discussion.
1. When did and do demographic developments become political and when do they turn into panics?
2. How did population politics relate to and transform “traditional” welfare politics?
3. What are the differences and similarities between population debates and politics in cross-national comparison? How can they be explained?
4. How are debates on population decline in industrial countries related to debates on overpopulation of “Third World” countries?
5. How do ideas of modernization and modernity shape demographic models and vice versa?