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The Demography of Aging

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Geriatric Medicine

Abstract

The demography of aging involves the investigation of trends in, and characteristics of, fertility, mortality, and migration and how these components of population change influence, and are influenced by, the physical and social environments in which people live. It is a new area of scientific inquiry, principally because aging is a demographic phenomenon experienced for the first time on a population scale largely by only one species—humansand then within only the last two hundred years of our existence. Research on the demography of aging is conducted not only by demographers but also by scientists representing a range of disciplines spanning the social and biologic sciences—from social psychology to evolutionary biology. It is an area of scientific inquiry that has important implications for public policy.

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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Olshansky, S.J. (1997). The Demography of Aging. In: Cassel, C.K., et al. Geriatric Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2705-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2705-0_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-2707-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-2705-0

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