290046 SE Masterseminar aus Humangeographie: Population dynamics in Asia and Africa. Comparative perspectives. (2020S)

In the latter half of the 20th century, East Asian countries successfully capitalized on shifts in their age structures to gain a boost in economic productivity, a phenomenon known as the demographic dividend. As Africa’s total fertility rate and its dependency ratio have been falling since the 1980s, and are projected to fall further, will a demographic dividend be also observed there in the near future?
If the future will very much depend on what policies each country puts in place, it remains crucial to understand better the causes and consequences of the population changes underway in Asia and in Africa to unravel the complexity of the global development realities from socio-cultural, economic and political perspectives.
The seminar will enable students to enhance their knowledge of the disciplinary fields of population geography and demography through the lens of a comparative approach.
Key issues of African and Asian fertility, morbidity, mortality and migration systems and trends along with their specific data sources and problems will be reviewed and discussed jointly. At the end of the course, the students should be able to critically discuss the nature and situations of African and Asian demography, and interpret existing policies, programmes, graphs and data accurately and apply their academic knowledge to real world events.
The working methods used in the seminar will be adapted to fit e-learning activities.