Covid-19 Global Demographic Research Needs? Replacing Speculative Commentaries with Robust Cross-national Comparisons [report]

Eva Beaujouan
2021 unpublished
the WorLd is currently undergoing a pandemic-induced crisis transformative of human needs and behaviors. How can demographers contribute to understanding Covid-19 and its consequences? Disparities between countries, and social, gender, and economic inequalities within them, were present well before the crisis and long studied by demographers. Covid-19 presents demographic researchers with a renewed and enhanced opportunity to contribute to the fight against inequality. Demographers can assist
more » ... untries in their recoveries over forthcoming years by collecting, compiling, and analyzing data on how the crisis unfolded, generating knowledge about changes in social and individual behaviors and adjustments in the population, and identifying what triggered them. Highlighting how the crisis and policy responses to it affected people may help policymakers better promote resilience and prepare for future crises-assuredly the next disease crisis, but also notably the climate emergency as well. In this comment, I argue that the Covid-19 crisis has increased the need for international comparisons, and hence for better comparative data. Why Do We Need International Comparisons? Cross-country studies are central to understanding demographic processes, and frameworks dear to demographers such as the demographic and epidemiological transitions, and Esping-Andersen's welfare state classification, could not have been developed without comparative data. Such studies allow unraveling the mechanisms that underpin macro-level trends and inter-Eva Beaujouan, University of Vienna (Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital [IIASA, OeAW, Univ. Vienna]).
doi:10.31899/pdr1.1001 fatcat:eqqrzei4ujbk7bwbhcpl2vtzcy