Mapping interdisciplinarity in demography: a journal network analysis

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in studying the intellectual structures of interdisciplinary fields, mapping interdisciplinarity in demography remains an unexplored topic. This paper visualizes such a demographic intellectual structure through a citation analysis of 65 demography-related journals between 2000 and 2003. The journal citation data were collected from Journal Citation Reports. The subject relatedness of the journals was revealed through a cluster analysis, a network diagram, and an analysis of citation percentages between demography journals and all selected journals. Twelve clusters of subject specialties are identified. The network diagram largely matches the result of the cluster analysis. The results reveal closer connections between the demography journals and neighboring social sciences journals than with public health and medical science journals. Correlations between the citation matrices suggest stable demographic citation patterns over time.