This led to an intellectual departure. Without having been taught in any explicit way, and without any conscious consideration of merits, I had been working as a positivist, meaning essentially the position that one can understand the situation by looking at the numbers without great attention to interpretive context. On recognizing this position explicitly, I found it unsupportable. Interest in demography arose independently of any concern with 'population problems'. Recognizing the importance of Malthusian issues, I find the field's preoccupation with them tiresome and constricting.
Demographic phenomena are intricately and inseparably part of the fabric of society as a whole.
Demography has a role to play throughout the social sciences in areas that have nothing particularly to do with population problems, as superbly shown by Wolf and Huang's Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845-1945 . At the same time, I want to see demography develop further as an intellectually independent discipline. The overall level of technical competence in the field is far lower than it ought to be.