Genuine puzzles and enigmas in demography is what motivates me most. As a rule, I take on topics that others consider too difficult and, lo and behold, topics that academic supervisors in the universities warn their students about. These are ‘roads not to be taken’ by those pragmatic souls who want to earn a doctorate and be done with it, or by those established academics who need to speed up publishing. This glorious academic culture leaves me with the best bits of meat. Why should I complain…? Difficulty is another word for opportunity.
When a topic of this kind presents itself, I launch an investigation which is, more often than not, an open-ended one. It takes what it takes. Data are collected and analyzed. Classic demographic compositions and old technical manuals are re-read. Pieces of evidence are re-arranged several times. Previous failed attempts to answer the same question are ‘put under the microscope’ and examined in detail. Successful attempts to answer similar questions are studied in depth too. And I question scholars too.
“….people miss Opportunity because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison is rumored to have said this. He had a point.
I call this method ‘forensic demography’, by the way. In spirit, a scientific puzzle is no different from a crime scene. ‘A puzzle’ means that something is not quite right – is it not? – that something behaved absurdly and left us with a bizarre outcome. The job of the researcher is to find out ‘whodunnit‘.
The right sidebar will lead to several puzzles that I managed to solve over years. Redefining the ‘Jewish pattern of mortality’, explaining fertility stalls, updating the demographic transition theory and the framework of the determinants of fertility are innovations in demographic science for which I take credit. There you will also find a brief introduction into history of Jewish population – in graphs.