About

Notre Dame Population Analytics (ND Pop) is a multidisciplinary program within the College of Arts & Letters that conducts policy-relevant quantitative research. ND Population Analytics supports research that helps explain the dynamics of populations and factors that impact human flourishing. We aim to accomplish this by building infrastructure that enhances faculty research productivity.

What is population analytics?

Population analytics is an empirical discipline that uses big data techniques. Quantitative work in the social sciences exploded in the 1970s as governments worldwide launched large-scale population-based surveys. The proliferation of surveys and the decrease in computing costs opened a new frontier in population research.

Why is population analytics important?

Social, economic, demographic, and technological forces are dramatically reshaping families and communities across the globe. These changes will present unique challenges and fundamentally change how individuals live, work, and interact.

• Worldwide, rising life expectancy and falling fertility rates have led to a rapid aging of the world’s population. This will produce an unprecedented rise in age-related medical conditions and health care costs and raises important questions about how we can help the elderly to age in place and with dignity.
• Over the past 50 years, Western economies have experienced a rapid transformation of the family. In 1973, 13 percent of births in the United States (US) were to unmarried women. That percentage has since tripled – in 2022, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that nearly 40 percent of births were outside of marriage and rates are substantially higher for some minority groups. Unmarried maternal status is associated with a host of problems for the child starting with health outcomes at birth and continuing with lower average socioeconomic outcomes at all stages in life.Technological progress and international trade have undermined the demand for workers in some high-wage sectors in the US while the information economy has placed a premium on computer skills and technological literacy. These global changes have reduced the demand for lower-educated workers and have widened economic inequalities across lower and higher educated groups, devastating some communities while making others attractive destinations for human and physical capital.
• The US has one of the lowest life expectancies of all industrialized countries. Life expectancy is driven in large part by the mortality of young people and the US unfortunately leads the industrialized world in two broad death categories that heavily impact the young: drug poisonings and gun deaths.
• Religious affiliation and attendance is collapsing in the Western world. A fast growing trend in Western religious composition is disaffiliation - what Pew Research describes as a surge in religious ‘nones’. Among those with a religious affiliation, the fraction that attends religious services on a weekly basis has fallen by almost 50 percent since 1950.

As these challenges unfold, it is clear that pioneering research into their causes, consequences, and possible solutions will be required to help families and communities navigate a rapidly changing world. This research must not only foster innovation through collaboration; it must also be grounded in a commitment to safeguarding individual dignity.