Gerard Stone-block

Gerard Stone-block (1934-2001), demographer and French, directing statistician of the National institute of demographic studies of 1972 to 1992.

Director of the INED during twenty years

Born on April 7th, 1934 in Orleans (France), died in Saint-Cloud (France) on March 15th, 2001.
Entered at the Polytechnic school in 1954, Gerard Calot continues his studies in Paris of 1957 to 1959, with the ENSAE (National school of the statistics and the economic administration) and in ISuP (Statistical institute of the university of Paris). Become in 1959 Administrator of INSEE (National institute of the statistics and the economic studies), it enters to the service of demography and becomes in 1966 head of the division “general Demography”. It organizes for this reason, in March 1968, the Recensement of the population in France, before being named in 1971 chief of the service of the demography of INSEE.
In September 1972, it is named director of the INED, the National institute of demographic studies, where it succeeds Alfred Sauvy and Jean Middle-class man-Pichat. It will occupy this station during nearly twenty years. In 1976, during the rough controversies which accompany the bill on liberalization by the abortion defended by Simone Veil, it provides to the latter the expertises requested. A public quarrel on the indices of fruitfulness, launched against him in 1991 by one of the principal researchers of its institute, Herve the Arm, tarnishes his last mandat.
After its departure of the INED in August 1992, it sits at the Economic and Social Council and founds the European demographic Observatory, which will occupy it until its untimely death in 2001. He played a decisive part in the creation of European Association for the studies of population (European association for population studies), which he chaired of 1987 to 1991, while getting busy to break the insulation of the best demographers of the communist bloc.

A teaching work

Its work is initially that of a pedagog of the demographic statistical analysis and, anxious to control the quality of the data and to clarify the concepts. It published between 1964 and 1967 three handbooks of statistics and probability theory. He is the author of many articles of method (of which a score in the review of the INED, Population ). Its main object was the demographic economic situation of France and the industrialized countries, with a preference for fruitfulness and the marriage rate, of which it tried to follow the annual variations, monthly and day laborers, by prolonging them by demographic projections. Its European demographic Observatory aimed at harmonizing the calculation of the demographic indicators for all Europe, in connection with Eurostat and the Council of Europe.
One owes him of the developments on a big number of concepts:

components of fruitfulness (in particular the average manpower of the women subjected to the risk);
the articulation between transverse measurement and longitudinal measurement of fruitfulness;
the measurement of the rates in demography (by age in completed years and age reached in the year);
concepts in advance, of delay and carryforward in the calendar of the births;
the exact chronology of the baby-boom;
factors of ageing;
the definition of the age (which he recommends to express by the relative position in the population pyramid).

All this work is nourished examples and is illustrated graphs of a remarkable precision.

An engagement natalist

Not very interested by the economic scenes and social, Gerard Calot preferred the traditional demographic sources (census and civil statue) with the data of investigations. Its incursions out of the demographic analysis are rare, except worms the questions of family policy. Claiming itself readily of Alfred Sauvy, it fitted openly in a step natalist, become minority in his own institute and which will not be adopted any more by its successors. He was particularly worried by the demographic ageing of France, which he more charged to the defect of fruitfulness to the lengthening of the life. Anxious to compensate for the falls of incomes of the large families, it inspired in 1986 a tax reform aiming at encouraging in France the birth of the third child.

Principal publications

G. Stone-block (1965), Course of descriptive statistics , Paris, Dunod (rééd. 1973).
G. Stone-block, Mr. Febvay (1965), differential mortality according to social environment: presentation of a method tested in France over the period 1955-1960: first results, Paris, INSEE.
G. Stone-block (1974), “the number of the abortions caused”, Population and companies, bulletin of the INED , nº 69,3 p.
G. Stone-block (1981), “Children, brothers and sisters, elder and puînés”, Population , nº 2, p. 361-396.
G. Stone-block (1984), the measurement of the rates in demography. Age in year completed or age reached in the year. Incidence of the choice of the definition. Application to general fruitfulness , Paris: University presses of France, vii + 321 p. (“Work and documents”, Book 104).
G. Stone-block (1984), “an interesting concept: the average manpower of the generations subjected to the mode”, Population , nº 6, p. 947-976.
G. Stone-block (1989), “mortality in China according to the census of 1982: analyzes according to the sex and the age at the national and provincial level”, Population , 4-5, p. 841-872.
G. Stone-block (1991), “Determination of a mortality table: the conversion of the rates into quotients”, Population , nº 6, p. 1441-1490.
G. Stone-block (1992), “Relations between longitudinal and transverse demographic indicators”, Population , n° 5, p. 1189-1240.
G. Stone-block (1993), “Relationships between cohort and period demographic indicators. The translation problem revisited”, Population, year English selection , vol. 5, p. 183-221.
G. Stone-block (1994), “Revenue duty, marital status and many children”, Population , nº 6, pp. 1473-1500.
G. Stone-block (1997), “Families, services and taking away: for an overall reflection”, Futuribles , n° 224, p. 95-101.
G. Stone-block and Al (1998), Two centuries of Swiss demographic history. Graphic album of the period 1860-2050 , Bern, federal Office of the statistics/European demographic Observatory, 235 p. + cédérom.
G. Stone-block, J. - P. Sardon (1999), “factors of demographic ageing”, Population , n° 3, p. 509-552.
G. Stone-block (2001), “the significance of the concepts of delay, advances, carryforward, anticipation, etc”, Population , n° 3, p. 333-335.
G. Stone-block, J. - P. Sardon (2001), “Fruitfulness, reproduction and replacement”, Population , n° 3, p. 337-396.
G. Stone-block, T. Frejka (2001), “Cohort reproductive patterns in low-fertility countries”, Population and development review , n° 1, p. 103-132.

References on Gerard Stone-block

Patrick Festy (2001), “Gerard Stone-block (1934-2001)”, Population , n° 3, p. 303-306.
François Héran (2001), “Gerard Stone-block (1934-2001)”, Population and companies n° 367, April 2001.
Maïté Ely (2001), “Bibliography of Gerard Stone-block”, Population , n° 3, p. 307-321.

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