Since 1952, the Population Council has sustained a commitment to the goal of training population scientists from developing countries. While the demand for population scientists remains strong, the field has changed substantially in the last five decades. To examine the current situation with respect to recruitment, training, funding, and employment of population scientists, the Population Council convened an international panel of experts in September 2000. Jane Menken, of the University of Colorado, chaired the panel. The Population Council’s representative was Cynthia B. Lloyd, director of social science research. Ann K. Blanc, of Blancroft Research International, served as consultant to the panel. Menken, Blanc, and Lloyd edited the panel’s recent report of its findings.
A changing field
New global issues—the expansion of international migration, aging populations, persistent poverty, preservation of the environment, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic—have eclipsed the historical focus of population scientists on describing and explaining population growth and fertility decline. Demography, however, the methodological core of the field, continues to be the central shaper and producer of population knowledge. Because of its distinctive tools and perspective, the field of population studies is particularly well suited to exploring emerging issues and proposing effective solutions.
Despite the great need for population scientists, particularly ones from the developing world, a critical change in the population field that occurred in the mid-1990s has made it more difficult to train population scientists. At that time, the United Nations Population Fund and the United States Agency for International Development decreased or eliminated funding for Ph.D. and Master’s-level training; new donors have not compensated for the withdrawal of these funds from the training arena. Opportunities for graduate training for promising developing-country scholars are thus now largely dependent on a diminishing number of private foundations and some national governments.
Key recommendations
“The most desirable situation we can cultivate is one in which population experts are trained primarily in high-quality institutions located in their own countries or regions,” says Menken. “However, this scenario is not likely to be achieved in the near future.” The panel’s recommendations represent its assessment of the actions that are most likely to lead to a more desirable situation while taking account of existing needs and gaps. Crucial among these recommendations are:
- Universities should provide a core set of Master’s and Ph.D. courses in demography staffed by faculty with specialized training. All graduate students who want to become practitioners in the population field should master this core of knowledge.
- Universities should modify curricula to familiarize students of population with key concepts and methodologies from allied disciplines, especially economics, sociology, statistics, and public health.
- Universities should provide advanced training in formal demography for a small number of specialists.
- University administrators should think creatively about ways to make training programs more effective through international collaboration. Donors should make the funding of such programs a priority.
- Population organizations and universities should provide previously trained population scientists with opportunities for continuing education in the form of midcareer training. In addition to expanding knowledge, this type of training helps participants to build useful personal networks and institutional links.
- Population organizations should continue to encourage international participation in professional meetings and associations. It is crucial to maintain continuing contact between young and established researchers and to increase access to current research findings.
- Donors should fund the development of high-quality research centers responding to a locally determined research agenda. In general, support should be aimed at improving the sustainability of local institutions through the retention of local staff and the reversal of "brain drain" to developed countries. The most important elements of support are research grants, computer facilities, libraries, travel grants, and funding for transnational collaborations that include faculty exchanges.
"Advances in information technology have allowed research to be conducted at greater speed and lower cost," says Lloyd, "and the development of the internet has created new opportunities for collaboration and information sharing." But without funding for basic training of new population scientists from developing countries and continuing education for working scientists, the goal of significantly strengthening research capacity in the developing world will remain out of reach.
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