H.A. de Gans – författare

This text is about the transition to modernity of population forecasting. In many countries interest in the future course of population was kindled by debates on the population problem since the turn of the 19th century. The debates were alternately caused by fear of the economic consequences of over-population, by anxiety regarding the strategic demographic aspects of population decline, the decline of the national elite, or by the menace of imminent race suicide. Because population debates tended to be based on emotion rather than "objective" arguments, some economists and statisticians felt the need for a better understanding of population dynamics and its effect on the development of future population. Their pursuit of objectivity in population debates resulted in the development of a forecasting methodology based on the findings of life table theory and analytical demography. The innovation of forecasting methodology was greatly helped by improved public statistics, the published data of population censuses and ever-extending time series of demographic rates.In the 1930s the innovation and propagation of knowledge of modern forecasting methodology received a new stimulus when it became clear that the new methodology could easily be applied in preliminary town planning research and urban and regional policy-making. This book recounts the history of the origin and establishment of modern population forecasting methodology and the resistance the new methodology met with. It demonstrates, using George Herbert Mead's philosophy of time, that the emergence of modern population forecasting resulted in a drastic change of the societal position of the forecaster, the consequences of which still resound today. The book uncovers contributions to the description and theory of the demographic transition in the publications of the early innovators of population forecasting. It looks at the pioneering position of inter-war population forecasting in the Netherlands and clarifies why the innovative endeavours of Dutch population forecasters of that period nevertheless remained hidden in international histories.This book is aimed at scientists, researchers and students in demography and applied demography, statistics, economy, social geography and urban and regional planning and science studies.

Authors, scholars and scientists whose mother tongue is not one of the major languages of international communication are seriously disadvantaged. Some individuals, such as Joseph Conrad or Vladimir Nabokov, have overcome that handicap brilliantly. Others learn to live with it: they can express themselves sufficiently lucidly in a second language to make their voice heard internation­ ally. At least when they have something original or striking to say they will be certain to reach their peers. Most scientists and scholars fall into that category. Others, again, have to wait until their work has been translated before its value is recognised. This may apply even to those whose mother tongue is widely read. The writings of Frenchmen Lyotard, Derrida, Baudrillard or Foucault on post-modernism, on language, discourse and power, for example, had tremendous world-wide impact only after English translations appeared on the market. De Gans' study of the development of population forecasting in The Nether­ lands is another striking illustration of the effects a language barrier may have. He demonstrates convincingly that although a -possibly some what awkward­ Dutchman named Wiebols, was a pioneer of modern cohort component demo­ graphic forecasting, he never received international recognition for this. In his thesis of 1925 Wiebols employed the newest instruments of demographic analysis in improving forecasting methodology.