The Population Research Center at NORC and the University of Chicago, now in its 22nd year, is an interdisciplinary research center designed to facilitate high-quality population research conducted by its researchers -- economists, sociologists, and other population scientists. From the early 1940s through the early 1970s, Chicago had an outstanding population group in sociology under the leadership of Philip Hauser, Donald Bogue, and Evelyn Kitagawa. This center of activity was revived in 1983 with a new P-30 Population Center. Since then, the staff of population researchers has grown from twelve to more than 40.

Growth within the Population Research Center has come from researchers in economics, psychology, business, public policy, medicine, and social services administration. This diversification in part reflects a broadening in all population centers and reflects a consistent trend at Chicago. The PRC has always worked at the margins of what was considered to be traditional demography, and as a result our center has helped expand the domain of the field. For example, we have placed less emphasis on the demographic methods featured in other population centers than on statistical methods adopted from the field of labor economics, including event-history analysis, and we have stressed the importance of understanding selection bias and censoring. We have also researched determinants of fertility decisions and their dynamics, timing, and spacing rather than more traditional fertility analyses. Though the research occasionally may have appeared to be on the periphery of demography, over time it has helped to redefine the domain more broadly.

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