Population Change in Canada

Abstract

The authors designed this monograph primarily as a supplementary text for courses dealing with population studies or as complementary reading in social sciences or public policy offerings that would benefit from content on Canada's demography.It is well-suited for both purposes.Indeed, many individual chapters would make excellent required reading in specialist courses on a variety of topics.Following a now-characteristic formula of OUP textbooks, the Kerr and Beaujot volume has a decidedly pedagogical style: each chapter starts with an "at a glance" box that in addition to providing highlights of what is to be presented also serves implicitly to outline specific learning objectives.Then the authors provide carefully researched and clearly written arguments for the topic at hand, and conclude by posing questions for critical thought, providing annotated recommended readings and pointing to related websites.Throughout the book, words and phrases placed in italics are (usually) defined in the glossary.The bibliography included at the end of the book is a masterful compilation of materials that have either been cited directly or have influenced the development of the substantive topics covered.After two brief introductory chapters, one on the study of population change and the other on Canada's population prior to the 20th century, the volume is divided into three parts: population processes (chapters on mortality, fertility, immigration); growth, distribution, and aging (chapters on population distribution, internal migration and the regions, the implications of changing growth patterns, and population aging); and the consequences of population change (chapters on families and households, sociocultural and socioeconomic composition, the demography of Canada's Aboriginal peoples, and population and the environment).Following a summary concluding chapter, there are four appendices (the life table; rates and standardization; the 2014 world population data sheet; and population estimates and demographic accounts), the aforementioned glossary, references, and a comprehensive subject index.This volume is more than a simple update of the second edition (Beaujot and Kerr 2004), which appeared over a decade ago.It contains new materials on Canada's pre-Confederation demography, the demographic history of First Nations peoples, and a detailed consideration of the interplay between population growth and the environment that places Canada's story in global context.Another feature is that topics are consistently framed in relation to population change: processes undergo variations, leading to structures and compositions that deviate from previous states, leading to processes with new values and changed context.Faithful to the intent of the first edition of this book (Beaujot 1991), which carried the subtitle "challenges of policy adaptation," this third edition also explores appropriate policy responses on the part of governments when forced to "consider the impact of demographic change on fundamental aspects of Canadian society" (p.xi).Indeed, sensitivity to socioeconomic and political matters is what renders the Kerr-Beaujot volume a potentially interesting choice for courses across the spectrum of the social sciences.Any courses dealing with First

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