Population in Canada
Definition of Population
The Canada social science dictionary [1] provides the following meaning of Population: All elements which a researcher wishes to generalize to. Or, all members of given class or set. For example, adult Canadian, teenagers, Canadian inmates, criminal offenders, can each be thought of as populations. Populations are difficult to study because we cannot find all of the members (eg: heroin addicts or male prostitutes) or because of the expense (eg: surveying all teenagers). Social scientists avoid this problem by gathering a sample from the population and then generalizing from the sample to the population.
Population: Resources
Notes and References
- Drislane, R., & Parkinson, G. (2016). (Concept of) Population. Online dictionary of the social sciences. Open University of Canada