Problems associated with aggregation and classification are the underlying theme of this book. When data assembled from individuals are presented as group characteristics, this process has logical complications. Racial profiling and ethnic discrimination are obvious examples of the problem. Petersen's book analyzes in general how information from "persons" turns into statistics about specific "people." The book is divided into two parts covering population and ethnicity. The first two chapters in part 1, on population statistics and the age-sex structure, are the foundations for any...

In Petersen's Malthus both the general reader and the social scientist are given a basis for contrasting Malthus with competing theories. As a background to...

From Birth to Death is a detailed analysis of how population statistics are collected in the United States, particularly by the Bureau of the Census. It describes the errors and other flaws typically found in such data.

Petersen sets out the fundamentals of demography and reviews the current proposal to use sampling in the census. He then reviews examples of how ignoring age and sex structure leads to false conclusions. Petersen explores race and ethnicity and the dilemmas inherent in the necessarily ambiguous definitions of these categories. He also analyzes the problems of women...