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| Abbreviation | PAA |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1930 |
| Type | Non-profit academic society |
| Headquarters | Alexandria, Virginia |
Region served | North America |
Official language | English |
President | Irma T. Elo (2025)[1] |
Publication | Demography |
| Staff | 5[2] |
| Website | populationassociation.org |
ThePopulation Association of America (PAA) is a non-profit scientific professional association dedicated to the study of issues related topopulation anddemography.[3] The PAA was established byHenry Pratt Fairchild andFrederick Osborn,[4] with funds secured byMargaret Sanger from theMilbank Memorial Fund.[5] In its early years, the PAA was a coalition of population scientists, birth control activists, immigration restrictionists, andeugenicists.[6]
The Population Association of America was conceived on December 15, 1930 at a meeting in the office ofHenry Pratt Fairchild atNew York University. It was an offshoot of the American National Committee of theInternational Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) which had been formed in 1927 withRaymond Pearl ofJohns Hopkins University as its first President.[7] The History Committee identifies the following events in the timeline prior to the founding of PAA that were relevant to founding PAA:[8]
The flagship journal of the PAA, calledDemography, is a bi-monthly open access journal published byDuke University Press and was founded in 1964.[11][12][13] It is one of the world's leading journals on issues related to population and demographic trends.[14]
The Irene B. Taeuber Award for research achievements of the Population Association of America is named afterIrene Barnes Taeuber.[15]
PAA awards8 different awards.
The PAA holds an annual meeting every March/April where people present research and data on population trends.
The PAA held its first annual meeting on April 22–23, 1932, inNew York City.[8] Since then, annual meetings have been held every year except the year 1938 and the years 1943, 1944, and 1945 (the latter three due to the United States' involvement inWorld War II).[8] Initially, PAA Annual Meetings were held in New York City and nearbyEast Coast cities, due to the concentration of population researchers and policymakers in that area. The first meeting outside the eastern U.S. time zone was held in Chicago in 1958.[8] Since then, conferences have been held in numerous locations across the United States ranging fromDallas andMiami toMinneapolis, and also in some cities inCanada such asMontreal andToronto.[8] The Annual Meetings for 2011, 2012, and 2013 were held inWashington D.C.,San Francisco, andNew Orleans respectively. The annual meeting website is maintained in collaboration withPrinceton University.[8][16][17][18] ThePew Research Center is among the many demography-related research groups that sends many papers and posters to this conference.[19] Some of the PAA's Annual Meetings and additional meetings have been held in collaboration with other professional associations such as theAmerican Statistical Association (1933, 1950),American Philosophical Society (1938), National Economic and Social Planning Association (1939), andAmerican Sociology Association (1967).[8] The Annual Meeting for 2020 was canceled, and the 2021 meeting was held virtually.
The PAA has also sponsored other population-related conferences, such as the 1935Conference on Population Estimates thatEleanor Roosevelt attended[8] and the 2013 conferenceIntegrating Genetics and the Social Sciences held at theUniversity of Colorado.[20]
Recent presidents were
PAA allows people to become members for a fee depending on their status and location. Members get PAA publications including the journalDemography, weekly e-newsletter, and they can attend the PAA Annual Meeting at a reduced rate. As of 2013, there were about 3,000 members.[22]
The PAA is a partner in the Science and Technology Fellowship Program of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science.[23][24]
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