Investigating demographic outcomes in the COVID-19 pandemic: perspectives from Asia

Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic has had and will continue to have a profound influence on human society for many years to come. By now, it has resulted in an unmistakable impact on core demographic processes—mortality, fertility, migration, family and marriage, and health—all around the world. Its impact on the core components of demographic change undergirds many other changes that have transformed society, be it in the arena of healthcare, geopolitics, macro-economies, or the environment. As Dommaraju (2020) observes, demographic analysis is useful in understanding the social aspects of population dynamics. This includes significant themes such as inequality, inequity, as well as differentials in demographic outcomes. Employing a social demographic lens towards analysing the pandemic can and has resulted in unique insights relating its effect on population dynamics. Preliminary studies have already produced interesting findings—Soneji et al. (2021) and Vanella et al. (2021) evaluate populationlevel mortality burden and excess mortality in light of the pandemic; Giorgi and Boertien (2021) and Bernardi et al. (2021) investigate the impact of pandemic confinement measures on socio-demographic inequality; and Furfaro et al. (2021) and Luppi et al. (2021) dive into the mobility strategies of individuals in light of containment measures. Desai (2021) highlights the challenges of demographic data collection during the pandemic, and Dommaraju (2020) notes that the pandemic has severely limited the collection of quantitative data, and calls for the increased need to focus attention on digital data and other innovative data collection methods and analyses. While research on demographic processes in the time of COVID-19 is gaining momentum, work on the Asian context is still by far more limited compared to the west. Emerging work published in this journal including questions around the impact of the pandemic on repatriation of migrant workers (Liao, 2020), mental health (Liu & Yin, 2023) and the migration regime (Yeoh, 2022) have only begun to make a contribution to understanding a wide spectrum of demographic issues in the long tail of the pandemic. In this light, this special section brings together population scholars working in and on Asia to discuss the following key questions: