1985-1987 - Population Studies Center - University of Michigan

Activities, United Nations PopulationDivision, U.S. Agency forInternational Development, U.S.Department of Commerce, U.S.Department of Labor, U.S. Departmentof State, The World Bank,World Health Organization.Michigan has always beenstrongly associated with the useofsurvey data in population analysis.This is partly a result of the presenceat Michigan of the strongSurvey Research Center (SRC).Some members of our staff havelong been associated with the SRC.The first national survey of fertilityand family planning was done atMichigan in1955 and paved theway for similar studies both in theUnited States and abroad. TheDetroit Area Study, which hastrained many PSC and other studentsin survey research methods,was begun by a staff with strongpopulation interests. The continuing(25 year) longitudinal DetroitFamily Growth Study, recently ledby Arland Thornton and DeborahFreedman, had its first round as aDetroit Area Study under thedirection of David Goldberg andRonald Freedman about the time thePSC was founded.While survey work continues tobe important, PSC research is by nomeans limited to that genre. Fromthe beginning the "bread andbutter" sources for demographicwork —the census and registrationdata — have been utilized in muchof our research. The rapidly emergingmethods and resources ofhistorical demography were exploitedearlier in our history byRonald Lee, Paul Demeny, andmore recently by John Knodel. Theuse of life-history calendars andframeworks for survey work isgaining prominence among our staffin the work of Arland Thornton,Deborah Freedman, and KarenMason. Such less formal approachesas the focused interviewhave been used in a noteworthyway by John Knodel in his work onThailand.The work of the Center in anumber of LDCs led at a fairly earlypoint to the beginning of comparativework cooperatively with others.In the late 1960s and early 1970s,Baron Moots, Lolagene Coombs,and Ronald Freedman were membersofthe Organization of DemographicAssociates, a group of Asianand American scholars who tried tocompare studies on demographictopics not originally designed forcomparative purposes. Similarefforts to compare fertility surveyswere the basis for the early work ofthe IUSSP Comrnittee on the Com-parative Analysis of Fertility, inwhich members ofthe PSC staffplayed leading roles.It is consistent with this traditionand earlier work on the communitylevel that leadership in the developmentof formal models relatingmacro and micro-level data acrossregions, communities, and countriesshould have been exercised atMichigan by William Mason, AlbertHermalin, and Barbara Entwisle.While fertility research has beenan important form of work, therewas always research on the otherbasic demographic processes andproblems. More recently WilliamFrey has strengthened our work onmigration and urbanization. BarbaraAnderson has introduced workon the U.S.S.R. and strengthenedour capabilities in indirect estimation.Reynolds Farley has for manyyears led distinguished work on theblack population of the U.S.,as wellas on urbanization. Karen Masonhas worked on research on genderrelatedissues.From early in its history, theCenter has included economic aswell as social demographers,beginning with Ronald Lee and PaulDemeny. Eva Mueller and DeborahFreedman, who have been on theCenter staff for many years, willsoon be retiring. David Lam joinedthe staff several years ago. We havehad a succession of excellentgraduate students from the Departmentof Economics.An important element inthe developmentof the Center has been anexcellent supporting staff. Programmers,secretaries, librarians, researchand editorial assistants, andadministrative staff who haveworked for any sustained periodhave assimilated the high standardswhich have been the goal of theCenter.Research Associates and Post-Doctoral Fellows have played anRonald Freedman 41