Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology - Population

The Department of Sociology offers a Ph.D. program in Sociology. Particular emphases include social networks, gender, race/ethnicity, labor, social movements, family, migration, population, political economy, and states and global transformation. The program provides structured training in sociological theory, statistics, and qualitative and quantitative research methods. While the core of the program is sociological, it may also include an interdisciplinary component, incorporating links to anthropology, education, law, political science, history, criminology, and urban planning. Small entering cohorts ensure personalized attention for each student and guarantee access to professors, allowing for close mentorship relationships. Program faculty take diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to a variety of substantive issues, are committed to empirical research addressing central sociological issues, and are open to intellectual cross-pollination from cognate disciplines.

The study of population processes is critical to understanding the world around us. Births, deaths, household formation, and migration remain crucial indicators of social change. The study of population covers not only basic measurements of population change, but also analysis of the roots and ramifications of those changes.

Sociologists approach the study of population by focusing on the social processes and implications of demographic change. If the public hears that the marriage is waning as an institution, sociologists of population will seek not only to define a marriage rate, but ask how adequate it is for measuring family formation and examine what social factors make it change. They apply a similar lens to fertility, mortality, migration and the processes that cause variation in their occurrence. To address such questions, graduate training in the population cluster focuses on grounding students in both sociological theory and statistical methodology.

Hold a bachelor's degree (or equivalent) from a recognized academic institution with degree standards equivalent to those of the University of California
Have a minimum cumulative undergraduate GPA of 3.0
TOEFL iBT minimum score of 80
IELTS - An overall minimum score of 7.0 for admission, with a score of no less than 6.0 on any individual module.