Lectures on Demography: Textbook for Higher Education Institutions

The textbook is based on lectures delivered by the authors from 1991 to 2024 on the course of demography at the faculties of sociology, world economy, and the higher school of social sciences at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Along with the fundamental principles of population dynamics and structure, students are provided with knowledge on behavioral demography and population sociology, enabling them to independently analyze the demographic situation in the country and in the world, modern trends in population reproduction, and the possibilities for influencing them through genuinely demographic policy measures. In the 2nd, revised edition, supplemented with data from the 2010 and 2021 censuses, compared to the 1st edition from 2011, the outcomes of interregional sample studies and materials from statistical reporting are also presented. An important distinction is that here, along with statistical information on population dynamics, an understanding of people's behavior, their diminishing and urgent needs, reproductive attitudes, and motivations for personal life spans is provided.

The textbook is recommended not only for students and postgraduate students of social and demographic faculties but also for social scientists, entrepreneurs, journalists, politicians, and public administration workers — for everyone who is interested in the problems of scientific explanation of demographic processes and sociological understanding of mass psychology, issues of changing demographic norms and attitudes.