Course 2025-2026 a.y.

Classes: 31 (II sem.)

Instructors:
Class 31: LETIZIA MENCARINI

How does population change shape the planet’s future? Understanding the links between demography and sustainability is essential for tackling today’s global climate challenges. Shifts in population size, age structure, migration, family formation, and household composition influence both the pressures driving climate change and societies’ ability to adapt. At the same time, climate impacts are uneven, affecting health, wellbeing, and livelihoods differently across countries and social groups. This course explores the dynamic relationship between people and the planet. Students will examine how demographic trends contribute to environmental stress and climate mitigation potential, and how climate change, in turn, reshapes demographic behavior. By combining theoretical perspectives with empirical evidence, the course trains students to critically assess how population dynamics and sustainability interact. Through lectures, case studies, and group presentations, students will learn to use demographic tools to understand real-world sustainability issues and to design equitable, evidence-based responses to global climate and development challenges.

The course examines:

 

• How population trends contribute to climate change, including how demographic composition, consumption patterns and behavioral and attitudinal change affect emissions and sustainability pathways.

 

• How climate change affects populations, with attention to differential vulnerability, demographic responses (fertility, mortality, migration) and climate change adaptation.

 

Global examples and case studies from both high-income and low-income countries illustrate concepts and real-world applications.

 

Teaching is jointly delivered by Professor Letizia Mencarini and Professor Raya Muttarak, alternating sessions and dividing the course into two complementary strands:

 

1. Demographic fundamentals and global population dynamics (Mencarini)
2. Population–environment interactions focusing on sustainability and climate impacts (Muttarak)

 

Content summary

 

The course is structured into three interconnected blocks: (1) foundations of international demography; (2) population-environmental interactions; and (3) group work through critical readings and seminar presentations.

 

1. Foundations of international demography

 

This first block introduces students to the core concepts and tools of international demography. It provides the analytical foundation for understanding drivers of population dynamics and how population size, structure and change shape societies around the world.

 

Core topics include:

 

- Fundamental demographic processes: fertility, mortality, migration

- Population composition: age, gender, education, household structures

- Global and regional demographic trends

- Demographic transitions across low-, middle- and high-income countries

- How demographic change affects societies: economic development, labor markets, families and social systems

 

This block equips students with a solid grounding in demographic perspective, preparing them to understand how population dynamics interact with sustainability and climate-related challenges.

 

2. Population–environment nexus

 

The second block explores how demographic patterns contribute to climate change and how climate change - in turn - affects populations differentially across the world. A cross-cutting theme is the analysis of these interactions with a particular focus on population heterogeneity, highlighting how differences in age, gender, education, socio-economic status, and household characteristics shape both sustainability outcomes and resilience. Examples are drawn from diverse global settings: aging societies, rapidly growing populations, urban vs. rural areas and climate hotspots

 

Core topics include:

 

- Human impacts on climate change: consumption, lifestyles, emissions

- Attitudes and behavioral change relevant for climate mitigation

- Climate impacts on populations: health, wellbeing, livelihoods

- Climate impacts on demographic processes: fertility, mortality, migration

- Climate justice and equity, focusing on gender, generational perspectives and inequalities between low- and high-income settings.

 

This block equips students with an understanding of how population dynamics and the heterogeneity within populations shape both human impacts on the climate system and the distribution of climate risks.

 

3. Group work through critical readings and seminar presentations

 

In the final block, students deepen their understanding through critical readings, guided discussions and seminar-style presentations. Working in small groups, students engage with core theories and empirical studies that illustrate how population dynamics intersect with sustainability and climate change impact.

 

Drawing on themes such as just transitions, food security under multiple stressors, intergenerational equity, population control, climate-related migration, gender and climate action, and climate activism, students analyze real-world cases from both low- and high-income contexts.

 

Each group prepares and delivers a seminar presentation that:

 

- synthesizes key theoretical arguments,

- evaluates empirical evidence, and

- illustrates insights through selected case studies.

At the end of the course student will be able to...

At the end of the course student will be able to...

• Lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Collaborative Works / Assignments
• Interaction/Gamification

	Continuous assessment	Partial exams	General exam
Oral individual exam			x
Written individual exam (traditional/online)		x	x
Collaborative Works / Assignment (report, exercise, presentation, project work etc.)	x
Active class participation (virtual, attendance)	x