Qualitative research in demography: a review of the last decade

Ernestina E. Coast, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Hennink Monique, Emory University
Inge Hutter, University of Groningen
Charles Nzioka, University of Nairobi
Mahesh Puri, Center for Research on Environment Health and Population Activities (CREHPA)

A state of the art review of how demography and population studies works with qualitative and mixed methods research. We take as our departure point the seminal special collection by Obermeyer et al (1997) in Population, Development and Review. We systematically map the published demographic literature (since 1998) and consider the ways in which qualitative approaches to population studies have changed (or not). In our systematic mapping we survey the top 10 cited demography journals, and note the small proportion of published research that uses qualitative methods. Preliminary analyses underscore the absence of published research that uses qualitative approaches. We highlight emergent contributions of technology to the conduct and publication of qualitative research.