David Coleman

david coleman
Associate Fellow

David Coleman is an Associate Fellow at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention and is Emeritus Professor of Demography at Oxford University following retirement as Professor of Demography in 2013. Before coming to Oxford in 1980 he was Lecturer in Biological Anthropology at University College London. He served as the Special Adviser to the Home Secretary and later to the Ministers for Housing and Environment in the UK Government from 1985 - 1987. Research interests include demographic trends in the developed world and their causes and consequences, the future of reproduction, population ageing, immigration and the demography of ethnic minorities. He has written or edited eight books and over 150 academic papers. He has been joint editor of the European Journal of Population and served on the editorial board of various demographic journals. He is a member of various demographic societies and is on the Council of the migration analysis group ‘MigrationWatch’ and the Advisory Group of the European Jewish Demography Unit. With others he organised a symposium at St John’s College (2013) on ‘Population: The Long View’ published as a special issue of the journal ‘Population Studies’ and recently organised (October 2019) ‘New Light on Old Britons’ a symposium on the palaeontology and genetic history of early human populations held at the  Royal Society. He is currently engaged in updating population projections and a book on the consequences of recent international migration on the demography, economy and society of the United Kingdom. Awards include the Valentinevskiye Chteniya Gold Medal of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (2010), and the Olivia Schieffelin Nordberg Prize for Communication in Demography, Population Council, New York (2016).

Publications include:

Coleman, D. (2022) “The Depopulation of Ukraine : a recurrent disaster revisited”, Finnish Yearbook of Population Research, 56, pp. 115–136

2018 - ‘Demographic Transition’. In SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development ed. Marc H. Bornstein. Thousand Oaks, California. Sage.

2016 - ‘A demographic rationale for Brexit’. Population and Development Review 42(4), 681 – 692.

2015 - ‘The Death of the West: An alternative view’ (with Stuart Basten). in Coleman, David, Stuart Basten and Francesco Billari (eds.), ‘Population – the Long View'. Population Studies 69 Supplement 1, S107 – S118.

2013 - ‘Population decline – the consequence of avoided parenthood’ in No time for children edited by Ann Buchanan and Anna Rotkirch. London, Palgrave Macmillan.

2013 - ‘The Twilight of the Census’ in Geoffrey McNicoll, John Bongaarts and Ethel Churchill (eds.) Population and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Paul Demeny. Supplement to Population and Development Review Volume 38, 2012, pp 334 – 351.

2011 -‘The Changing Face of Europe’ in Political Demography: How Population Changes are Reshaping International Security and National Politics. Ed. Jack A. Goldstone, Eric P. Kaufmann, Monica Duffy Toft. Boulder, Colorado. Paradigm. 176-193.

2010 - ‘Projections of the Ethnic Minority populations of the United Kingdom 2006- 2056’. Population and Development Review 36, 3, 441 – 486.

2010 - (with S. Dubuc) “The fertility of ethnic minorities in the UK, 1960s-2006.” Population Studies 64(1): 19 – 41.

2008 - ‘The demographic effects of international migration in Europe’. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 24: 453 – 477.

2006 - ‘Immigration and ethnic change in low-fertility countries: a third demographic transition’ Population and Development Review 32, 3, 401 – 446’ 

2004 - Why we don’t have to believe without doubting in the ‘Second Demographic Transition’ – some agnostic comments. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2004, Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences, pp 11 – 24.                          

2002 - ‘Replacement Migration, or why everyone is going to have to live in Korea: a fable for our times from the United Nations’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 357, 583 – 598.

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