This course provides a broad overview of the field of population studies. Topics covered include: a survey of past and current trends in the growth of the population, analysis of the components of population change (fertility, mortality, migration) and their determinants, the social and economic consequences of population change (environmental, ageing and the welfare state), racial/ethnic and spatial inequality and population policy. The readings cover issues in industrialized as well as low-income countries, with a focus on the U.S. for several topics.

Course is designed for doctoral students in their third year of a specialization in demography. One objective of the course is to examine critically how researchers tackle demographic research questions. A second related goal is to explore the construction of a dissertation and a research paper.

This seminar explores important factors facing the field of global health today, as well as policy actions to address these factors. It examines demographic changes and rapid urbanization, climate change and its implications for global health, the increased importance of non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries, the rise of social media and misinformation/disinformation, new health risk factors such as antimicrobial resistance, and the increased prominence of humanitarian emergencies due to conflicts, natural disasters, pandemics and other disease outbreaks.

This course focuses on the opportunities, constraints and roles of women in an increasingly interdependent economy. The class combines readings from both developed and developing country settings. Topics include: dynamics of fertility and household formation; labor market institutions--types of contracts, wage gaps and discrimination; intra-household allocation of resources and cash transfers; women's migration; education, STEM and stereotypes; violence; political and property rights.

This course uses the lens of reproductive justice to examine policy and politics around reproduction and family formation in the United States. The course explores the social, historical and cultural forces that shape reproduction, focusing on how inequalities based on gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, and citizenship structure and influence reproductive opportunities and experiences. Topics include contraception and abortion, childbirth and maternity care, adoption and family policy, reproductive technology, eugenics, the maternal mortality crisis, and the role of law, medicine and activism in shaping contemporary reproduction.

This course examines the historical and contemporary literature on international migration, the policies that enable or impede cross-national migration, and the consequences for the sending and receiving states as well as the migrants themselves. Drawing on contemporary international evidence, students will consider classical and contemporary theories of immigrant adaptation, language acculturation, and ethnic conflict from comparative international evidence.