What does demography have to do with higher education? At least three different things. Firstly, demographic trends in a country’s population or worldwide may have an impact on the size, cost, dynamics, and demographics of higher education systems and their outputs. Secondly, higher education systems have their own demographic trends: one can for example be interested in the size, composition, and dynamics of student, graduate, academic, and administrative staff populations within the sector for a variety of reasons. Finally, higher education has an impact on countries’ demographics: not only is educational attainment one of the criteria that is often studied in demographic studies, but the share of the tertiary educated group in a population can also have an impact on countries demographic trends as this influences birth and mortality rates, health, income, etc.
Demography is concerned with both quantity and quality – two interrelated dimensions of populations that can be looked at...
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Vincent-Lancrin, S. (2017). Demography and Higher Education. In: Shin, J., Teixeira, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_52-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_52-1
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