Fifty Years of Population and Development Review: Shifting Research Themes, Authorship, and Academic Impact in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

To mark the Population and Development Review’s (PDR) 50th anniversary, we analyze its contributions to the landscape of population research. We examine the trajectory of research published in PDR and compare it with two leading and long-standing English-language demographic journals, Demography and Population Studies. Through a computational meta-analysis of all articles published across the three journals over the past 50 years, we explore trends in knowledge production focusing on research themes and authorship characteristics. Our automated text analysis highlights the prominence of fertility, family, and mortality themes across all three journals, but with PDR placing greater emphasis on development, policy, and population growth. Interest in migration and health-related topics has also increased over time across all journals, including PDR. Our analysis of authorship characteristics reveals a persistent overrepresentation of scholars located in Global North countries, particularly the United States, across all three journals. While the prominence of the United States has declined in PDR, European representation has grown, alongside a relative decline in Global South authors compared with earlier decades. Over the past 50 years, all three journals have had a male-dominated authorship, but gender balance has improved significantly, reaching near parity in recent years.

Aasli Abdi Nur

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Computational Demography

Aasli is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford.