Work with a demography scholar at Emory University was enough to interest sociology major Courtney Fitzgerald in the growing interdisciplinary field of population sciences. After a two-week workshop at Duke this summer, Fitzgerald learned just how valuable her contributions to the field might be.
Fitzgerald was one of 21 undergraduates from 19 colleges and universities across the United States who took part in the NextGenPop summer pipeline program for rising seniors. The goal of the multi-institutional program is to build the next generation of population sciences scholars, with a focus on students from underrepresented communities.
Population science scholars study the causes and consequences of changes in population structure and composition that shape economic, social and health inequalities, and make recommendations on public policies that address these large issues.
Fitzgerald came to the NextGenPop program interested in connecting her research interests, including psychology, race and gender studies, to the range of issues covered in population sciences.
“The breadth of the program was especially intriguing to me. Professors from multiple institutions, disciplines, and research interests provided a great survey of the field,” Fitzgerald said.
Doing this work surrounded by students from a variety of backgrounds emphasized to Fitzgerald the value of diversity in doing population sciences scholarship. It’s more than representation, she said: The different experiences of the young scholars brought a lot of great ideas.
“In the field of population studies, underrepresentation in census or broad survey data collection can have serious implications,” she said. “If there are no data, there can be no analysis, and ultimately no policy interventions to benefit underrepresented populations that are arguably the most in need. Researchers who come from underrepresented backgrounds are not only more likely to advocate for more inclusive data collection, but to also do the vital research with these data.”
“The population research field is not sufficiently recruiting scholars from a wide range of backgrounds” said Professor Giovanna Merli. “This is important both for providing opportunities for groups of individuals that have been historically disadvantaged and for generating a body of demographic knowledge that fully reflects the diversity of human populations today.”
Sanford School of Public Policy Professor Giovanna Merli, director of the Duke University Population Research Institute (DUPRI) said the NextGenPop program comes from a consortium of population research centers that is working with the Population Association of America. The program, which is funded by the National Institute for Child Health and Development, is rotating across five universities.
“The population field, similar to a lot of other academic fields, doesn’t reflect the diversity of the populations we study,” Merli said. “Increasing the diversity of our field introduces new needed perspectives, questions, and approaches which matter for how we understand the social world and address inequities.”
During the program, the 21 students from 19 institutions participated in seminars on demography; race, racism and population health; the family; migration; criminal justice; economic inequality and poverty. Seminars were led by nine DUPRI scholars in the Sanford School of Public Policy and the Department of Sociology who were joined by five colleagues from the Hopkins Population Center.
“Collaborating with the Duke University Population Research Institute has provided us with the opportunity to recruit students from local institutions across the mid-Atlantic and the South and expose them to the many ways that they can make a difference in the health of populations through careers in population science,” said Johns Hopkins’ Emily Agree, who co-led NextGenPop@Duke with Merli.
Students came from a variety of majors but came away from the program understanding how their interests could connect to population sciences. Alyssa Kennedy Crenshaw, a chemistry and math major at Winston Salem State University, said she left excited about how she could use population health in her goal of becoming an OBGYN physician. She said she at first didn’t see how the two fields connected.
“Being part of an event that teaches about systematic racism will help me better understand and have more empathy when working with diverse populations,” Crenshaw said.
Likewise, Noah Balderrama, a sociology major at California State University-Fullerton, quickly saw how social demography was a necessary part of their research on residential selection involving to LGBT individuals and minority groups.
Balderrama said the discussion of identity with other queer researchers at the program helped shape their research ideas.
“As we were talking about how the population pyramid is divided between male and female, we realized that is not necessarily representative of the entire population,” Balderrama said. “What about people who are intersex? That’s the way it’s been done in the field for so many years, but the program made us question that. The leaders at NextGenPop encouraged us to research further how to incorporate that into our models.”
NextGenPop fellows received training in research methods and data analysis and delivered research presentations on topics ranging from maternal health to housing to environmental inequality to immigrant health. They also got a chance to explore Durham during their two-week residence, including a visit to the Duke Lemur Center, enjoying Music in Duke Gardens and tasting North Carolina BBQ by the Eno River.
“NextGenPop is about creating and maintaining the support structures needed to build a diverse pipeline of future population researchers to address some of our most pressing social, environmental, and health issues,” said Hedwig Lee, James B. Duke Professor of Sociology. “As a Black and Latina population researcher, I know firsthand that this is a critical period when exposure to population research and connection to mentors can have a profound impact on career trajectories and shaping the demography of who studies demography.”
DUPRI hosted the program with additional funding from the Office of the Provost to host students from local HBCU/MSI. The Duke Graduate School and the Sanford School of Public Policy also provided support.
Growing Population Sciences
The reason for the NextGenPop program is in the numbers. Even if the population sciences grow in numbers and scope, there remains a striking lack of students and scholars from communities that are a focus of much of the research and policy recommendations in the field.
For example, sociology and economics produce the largest number of population scholars. In 2014, only 7.5% of new Ph.Ds in sociology and 3.1% in economics identified as Black. Scholars identifying as Hispanic comprised 7.5% in of new Ph.D.s in sociology and 5.2% in economics.
There has been little progress in these numbers over recent decades.
At the professional level only 18% of members of the Population Association of America (PAA) – the leading organization for demographic research – identified as Black or Hispanic in 2023.
“The population research field is not sufficiently recruiting scholars from a wide range of backgrounds” said Professor Giovanna Merli. “This is important both for providing opportunities for groups of individuals that have been historically disadvantaged and for generating a body of demographic knowledge that fully reflects the diversity of human populations today.”
