title: Growth rate, population entropy, and perturbation theory.
abstract: This paper is concerned with the connection between two classes of population variables: measures of population growth rate--the Malthusian parameter, the net reproduction rate, the gross reproduction rate, and the mean life expectancy; and measures of demographic heterogeneity--population entropy. It is shown that the entropy functions predict the response of the growth rate parameters to perturbations in the age-specific fecundity and mortality schedule. These results are invoked to introduce the notion of environmental intensity. The intensity function, expressed in terms of the entropy parameters, is applied to give a comparative study of the effect of environmental factors on the dynamics of Swedish and French populations.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Demetrius
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009026:Mortality; D011157:Population Dynamics; D013548:Sweden