DeVisiona demographic view
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About the project

About the “Demographic Vision” project

The idea of building an up-to-date database on the demographic situation in the developed countries belongs to Alain Monnier, then Senior Researcher and the Chief of the Demographic Conjuncture Research Unit at the Institut national d’études démographiques (INED), France. For many years, Monnier, in collaboration with Catherine de Guibert-Lantoine, authored the annual surveys “The demographic situation in the developed countries” for the journal Population, and accordingly gathered the necessary figures from a wide range of sources. In his view, such a database would cut down the routine labour of compiling statistical tables and leave more time for analysing and interpreting the trends observed.

Earlier still, in the 1980s, the eminent French demographer and statistician Gérard Calot, then Director of INED, had concluded that an expert database of demographic data was needed — one that could serve to estimate demographic indicators and to follow demographic trends in Europe independently of the figures ordinarily published by national statistical agencies or private research bodies, whose availability depends on the scientific and administrative capacity of those agencies and often on the national political situation as well. Together with like-minded colleagues from several countries, Calot created the information system Club, which computed the finest fertility indicators for different countries from primary data according to a single method. Today that system is maintained by the Observatoire démographique européen, headed by Jean-Paul Sardon, who in 2002 succeeded its founder Gérard Calot as director.

Alain Monnier’s collection of data, though it existed in electronic form from the outset, remained — like Calot’s Club — beyond the reach of the wider research community, even if their authors readily shared material with anyone who approached them. Today the development of information technology, together with the broad and steadily growing availability of the Internet, makes it possible to open large databases to all; demographic data can be no exception. It was on these grounds that Alexandre Avdeev, Professor at the Institut de démographie de l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Head of the Information Division of the Centre for Population Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, proposed developing an information system for an interactive, freely accessible and continuously updated database built upon Alain Monnier’s collection. The architecture of the database was designed by Vladimir Pshenkin of the computing service of the Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, together with A. Avdeev. The technical implementation of the project was carried out in full by V. Pshenkin, with the support of INED.

Sources and the geographical and chronological scope of the database

Initially, the material held here consisted largely of Alain Monnier’s collection, drawn from numerous publications of national statistical agencies and of international organisations such as the United Nations and Eurostat. Many indicators were supplied by Jean-Paul Sardon, Director of the Observatoire démographique européen, while the historical series were taken from specialised studies, of which the most important are:

For technical reasons, most of the data in Alain Monnier’s collection were “anonymised”, that is, their sources were not recorded. The new interactive version makes it possible not only to record the source but also to attach comments to the data, so that new material will be annotated as the database is extended and revised.

Historically, systems of continuous and periodic registration of population change were established in those countries in Europe and North America that today fall into the category of “developed” states; this determines the geographical scope of the database. Periodic censuses date from the early nineteenth century, but their methodology took final shape only in the middle of that century, when effective systems of current population registration were also created. By the middle of the last century these systems of periodic and continuous registration had become more or less uniform across the European countries, yet only from the early 1950s can the data of all developed countries be compared with confidence. Most of the indicators presented here therefore relate to the period after 1950. Nevertheless, the advance of research into the population history of the European countries over recent decades allows the database to be enriched, and its historical horizon steadily pushed back.

The database is a historical one and holds information on the populations of states that have already vanished from the political map of present-day Europe — Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. At the same time, it contains information on particular territories that are not universally recognised as states, such as Kosovo or Vojvodina in the former Yugoslavia. The full list of territories for which any information at all is available may be consulted through the system of so-called “unstructured” queries.

Since 2006, the content of the database has been developed and maintained by A. Avdeev, who has incorporated a great deal of previously unknown material covering the period from the beginning of the twentieth century. This has become possible thanks to the growth of research in historical demography within the countries of the European Union.

Prospects for the project, and an invitation to collaborate

The information system created for this project can readily be adapted to any database: all that is required is to modify the list of territories (objects) and of indicators (characteristics). The possibility of administering and extending the database remotely, over the Internet, opens wide prospects for its development. The authors of the project will therefore welcome collaboration with interested parties, whether to extend the existing database — including its commentary — or to build new ones, at the sub-national level for instance. Proposals for collaboration may be addressed to Alexandre Avdeev.