K. A. P. Siddhisena

Abstract

Demography is a pivotal discipline in the Social Sciences to understand the size, growth and composition of population, and population dynamics of fertility, mortality, and migration which affect the socio-economic development and wellbeing of the people in a country. Demography and Population Studies are closely associated disciplines which are rooted in and have sprawled across the field of Social Sciences to understand the broad spectrum of the Demographic discipline. Demography is also considered a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field and therefore it is a lucrative discipline not only as a Social Science discipline but also as a discipline that has progressed into other fields in Natural Sciences, Medicine, Health Sciences, and Public Health. Demography is related to other disciplines in the Social Sciences such as Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Sociology, Political Science, and Psychology. With the establishment of the Demographic Training and Research Unit (DTRU), Demography as a Social Science discipline was established within the Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo in 1973 to initiate teaching, training, and research in the fields of Demography and Population Studies. In 1997, the DTRU was upgraded as a fullfledged department to expand its training and research programmes. Demography has become an applied discipline in several other Universities in Sri Lanka as well. At present, Demography is being accepted by academicians, planners, policymakers, and by administrators as an important discipline in the Social Sciences.

Keywords: Demography, Multidisciplinary, Population, Social Sciences