Business Demography in the 21st Century

Murdock and Swanson (2008) observe that applied demography is evolving as the 21st century unfolds and that data bases, substantive issues and methodological approaches seldom considered just a few years ago have become mainstream concerns in the field. Making up applied demography are two subsets: (1) public sector demography; and (2) business demography. Swanson and Pol (2008) argue that although estimation and projection are the heart and soul of both sectors and many methods and materials are common to both, it is useful to distinguish business demography from public sector demography because the unique, profit-oriented and often times proprietary nature of the work justifies separate consideration for business demography. Thus, in this special issue of Population Research and Policy Review, we are pleased to present an overview of the field of business demography at the dawn of the 21st Century. This overview is meant to largely complement examinations that have preceded it in the later part of the 20th century and in the earlier part of this one. Six books and three papers come to mind in this regard. The books include those by Rives and Serow (1984), Murdock and Ellis (1991), Kintner et al. (1994), Pol and Thomas (1997), Siegel (2002), and Murdock and Swanson (2008). The paper by Swanson et al. (1996) provides a useful overview of the development of applied demography and its two subsets, as do the papers by Smith and Morrison (2005) and Swanson and Pol (2008). This attempt to provide a current overview of the increasing breadth and depth of the field of business demography has its roots in an international seminar sponsored