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1 Age and Sex

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Handbook of Population

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Abstract

In this chapter, I first consider the definition of age and sex. Age is relatively easy to define as long as it is based on chronological age. But the definition of age becomes more difficult to define if the researcher uses prospective age. With regard to sex, some may think that sex is easy to define, but it is not. First, sex and gender are not the same. There are many issues that need to be considered in determining one’s sex, and there are many issues that need to be considered in determining one’s gender. Both sets of issues are reviewed. Next, I review some of the theoretical issues pertaining to what demographers refer to as stable population theory. I next cover some of the methods and approaches demographers use to represent age and sex structure. I conclude the chapter with discussions of two key areas of age and sex structure, namely, the sex ratio at birth (SRB) and population aging.

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  1. Department Sociology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Dudley L. Poston Jr.

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    Dudley L. Poston Jr.

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Poston, D.L. (2019). 1 Age and Sex. In: Poston, D.L. (eds) Handbook of Population. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10910-3_2

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