Student Notes

One of the basic ways of understanding a society is to look at its demography, how its population has waxed and waned, and how births, deaths and migration patterns create the kind of society we have today. It is necessary to look at those patterns in historical context (over time) and in comparative terms (e.g. how Scotland compares with other societies). We will find that it has distinctive features which we will try to account for in this chapter. In the following chapter, we will focus on patterns of mortality (death) and morbidity (disease), so you may like to read both chapters together.