Demography for Business Decision Making


Book Description

Demography as a discipline is now at the point where its relevance to business decision making is indisputable—and top business management knows this. People who lack an understanding of state-of-the-art demographic techniques, and who cannot adapt to new ways of thinking prompted by demography and demographers, will find themselves significantly disadvantaged in today's competitive business environment. Pol and Thomas thus provide practitioners and students alike with a concise but intensive introduction to the concepts and methods of business demography. They chronicle current demographic trends and explain their meaning for business. With numerous examples drawn from business and industry, they make clear that business demography is truly a decision-making science. Pol and Thomas introduce basic concepts, then present an overview of recent and future demographic trends. They elaborate on the application of current demographic methods to planning and marketing in the contemporary business environment, and illustrate their points with numerous charts, maps, and sidebars. Pol and Thomas provide many examples of real world situations in which demographic methods, data, perspective, and theory are actively applied. With sections on sources of health care data, the calculation of demographic rates, the demographic resources available and up-to-date statistics on current demographic trends, their book becomes not only a unique resource for professionals, but also a useful text and reference for their colleagues in the academic community.




Applied Demography


Book Description

In contrast to a typical general text in demography, which is concerned with demographic principles, trends, problems, and theories, Applied Demography explores the practical issues with which demographers working for government agencies, private nonprofit organizations, and businesses deal. It emphasizes the applications of applied demography in a variety of related disciplines, such as geography, economics, gerontology, public policy, law, sociology, public administration, and business management. The data of these disciplines are taken into account, as are the methods of statistics and computer sciences. The book aims to inform the student of the wide range of applications of demography, including not only narrowly demographic situations but also nondemographic situations, such as manufacturing processes and the dynamics of organizations as a population.




Demographics


Book Description

This is a collection of 20 case studies prepared by a group of demographers; professors of economics, sociology, population studies, business, and marketing; and research analysts interested in understanding a world of changing demographics. Because the study of demography is becoming increasingly important to a growing number of professionals and decisionmakers in business and government, these case studies were written to address how the science of demography is being applied to real-world problems. Written in nontechnical language and presented in a classroom-tested format, this easy-to-use guidebook covers applications of applied demography in government planning, long-term corporate strategy, forecasting, human resource management, and marketing. The authors show how to tie financial, political, and legal analysis into a consideration of demographic data and trends.




Big Shifts Ahead


Book Description

"Demographics determine the direction of your business. Demographic trends can be overwhelming, misleading, confusing, conflicting, and difficult to predict. Not anymore. John Burns and Chris Porter wrote this book to help make demographic trends easier to understand, quantify, and anticipate. Readers of this book will have a huge competitive advantage because they will be making decisions with facts, and they will be better able to adjust their strategies when unanticipated events shift prevailing trends."--book jacket




Reproductive Decision-Making in a Macro-Micro Perspective


Book Description

This book provides new insights into the significant gap that currently exists between desired and actual fertility in Europe. It examines how people make decisions about having children and demonstrates how the macro-level environment affects micro-level decision-making. Written by an international team of leading demographers and psychologists, the book presents the theoretical and methodological developments of a three-year, European Commission-funded project named REPRO (Reproductive Decision-Making in a Macro-Micro Perspective). It also provides an overview of the research conducted by REPRO researchers both during and after the project. The book examines fertility intentions from quantitative and qualitative perspectives, demonstrates how the macro-level environment affects micro-level decision-making, and offers a multi-level analysis of fertility-related norms across Europe. Overall, this book offers insight into how people make decisions to have children, when they are most likely to act on their decisions, and how different social and policy settings affect their decisions and actions. It will appeal to researchers, graduate students, and policy advisors with an interest in fertility, demography, and life-course decision making.







Towards Bayesian Model-Based Demography


Book Description

This open access book presents a ground-breaking approach to developing micro-foundations for demography and migration studies. It offers a unique and novel methodology for creating empirically grounded agent-based models of international migration – one of the most uncertain population processes and a top-priority policy area. The book discusses in detail the process of building a simulation model of migration, based on a population of intelligent, cognitive agents, their networks and institutions, all interacting with one another. The proposed model-based approach integrates behavioural and social theory with formal modelling, by embedding the interdisciplinary modelling process within a wider inductive framework based on the Bayesian statistical reasoning. Principles of uncertainty quantification are used to devise innovative computer-based simulations, and to learn about modelling the simulated individuals and the way they make decisions. The identified knowledge gaps are subsequently filled with information from dedicated laboratory experiments on cognitive aspects of human decision-making under uncertainty. In this way, the models are built iteratively, from the bottom up, filling an important epistemological gap in migration studies, and social sciences more broadly.




Demographic Behavior


Book Description




The Frontiers of Applied Demography


Book Description

This book details cutting-edge methods and findings that may shape the future of applied demography. Inside, readers will discover new insights into the databases, substantive issues, and methodological approaches that can help them to improve how they use demography in decision making and planning problems in both public and private settings. The topics and perspectives are found in the book’s 23 chapters, which are organized into three major sections: (I) Demographic Information for Decision-Making: Case Studies; (II) Data: Issues and Analyses; and (III) Projection and Estimation Methods: Evaluations, Examples, and Discussions. Coverage includes chapters on migration, demographic market analysis, future courtroom needs, trends in the needs of the elderly, access to health care, longitudinal data systems, census costs, and new approaches to small area estimation and projection methods. The case studies represent a wide range of countries, including Australia, Canada, China, England, India, Japan, and the United States of America. Overall, this edited volume collects papers that were presented at different conferences, including the 8th international conference on population geographies (University of Queensland, 2015), the 2014 Applied Demography Conference (San Antonio, Texas, USA), and the annual conference of the Canadian Population Society. Applied demography touches many aspects of our lives and its practitioners continue to push methodological and empirical boundaries. This book documents the steady evolution of this field. It shows demographers, sociologists, economists, planners, marketers, and others how they can improve the quality and relevance of demographic information now and in the future.




Statistics for Business


Book Description

In Statistics for Business: Decision Making and Analysis, authors Robert Stine and Dean Foster of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, take a sophisticated approach to teaching statistics in the context of making good business decisions. The authors show students how to recognize and understand each business question, use statistical tools to do the analysis, and how to communicate their results clearly and concisely. In addition to providing cases and real data to demonstrate real business situations, this text provides resources to support understanding and engagement. A successful problem-solving framework in the 4-M Examples (Motivation, Method, Mechanics, Message) model a clear outline for solving problems, new What Do You Think questions give students an opportunity to stop and check their understanding as they read, and new learning objectives guide students through each chapter and help them to review major goals. Software Hints provide instructions for using the most up-to-date technology packages. The Second Edition also includes expanded coverage and instruction of Excel® 2010.