Faculty of Social Sciences

Demography is a branch of the social sciences concerned with the study of human populations in terms of their structure, size, and the changes wrought by the interrelationship among the three fundamental factors of fertility, mortality, and migration. These three components constitute the core subjects and essential nucleus of demography, collectively governing the stability or transformation of populations. Furthermore, the status and fluctuations of these components carry demographic, social, and economic implications that have consistently commanded the attention of research domains within the social sciences and of socio-economic policy-making. It may thus be asserted that demography constitutes the scientific study, descriptive analysis, and statistical examination of the composition and dynamics of human populations, alongside the investigation of population policies and the reciprocal relationships existing between demographic phenomena and socio-economic and biological factors. In examining such phenomena, demographers commonly draw upon census data, survey research, and statistical models.

The interdisciplinary character of demography situates this discipline in relation to numerous other fields, including sociology, economics, history, public health, ecology, geography, anthropology, biology, genetics, and epidemiology. Nevertheless, in the majority of universities and educational institutions worldwide, it is the faculties of social and economic sciences that offer this field of study. In Iran, following the establishment of the Faculty of Social Sciences in 1972, the Department of Demography was founded and commenced admitting undergraduate students. Prior to the Revolution, students were enrolled in the undergraduate demography program across eight cohorts. Subsequently, following the consolidation of the faculty's disciplines and the creation of a unified Social Sciences program (with various concentrations), the instruction of demography as an independent undergraduate field was discontinued. In response to societal demands for the training of demographic specialists and the imperative to advance and elevate both education and research in demography, the Department of Demography resumed student admissions at the master's level beginning in the academic year 1988–1989. The inaugural doctoral entrance examination in demography was held in 2002, and with the admission of five students, doctoral-level instruction in demography commenced and has continued to the present day.