2014/01/09 by Anatole Romaniuk · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Medicine · #Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences #Social and Economic Development in India #Global Maternal and Child Health #Historical demography #Demography #Geography #Genealogy #Sociology #Population #History #Research methodology
paper · pdf · doi:10.25336/p6hw3r
published in Canadian Studies in Population 40(3-4), 248 (Springer Nature)
openalex publication_date 2014/01/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Going deep into the past, well into the preliterate era, the "historical demography of India is no doubt a complicated jigsaw, with several pieces missing," writes Professor Krishnan Namboodiri, who prefaced the book. And indeed, with few exceptions-the closest one to us Canadians being French Canada, with its parish registers from the earliest days of French settlement-historical demographers have always had to contend with data problems. The first decennial census in India was taken in 1881, under British rule. The author, as others researchers, had to resort to stable and quasi-stable population models to derive estimates of basic demographic parameters, such as age distribution, fertility, and mortality, from the successive censuses. This has been supplemented by mini-surveys and local Christian church registers. As for more remote times, Krishnan had to rely on ancient literary records that are only indirectly connected to demography, and as such, he notes, they are no substitute for "systematic accumulated certified knowledge."