Joseph Chamie, an international demographer, is a former director of the United Nations Population Division at United Nations Headquarters and later research director at the Center for Migration Studies in New York City.

He grew up in the Detroit area and graduated from the University of Michigan. Some years later after government service abroad, he received his doctoral degree in sociology, majoring in the field of population. His major area of concern during this graduate training was fertility, which resulted in the publication of his first book, “Religion and Fertility”.

He has worked in various regions, specializing primarily in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. In addition to his work in national health programs, he has first-hand experience with the diverse problems of less developed countries as well as the more developed nations.

He lived for several years in a rural village in Bihar, India working in healthcare. In addition, he lived in areas of civil conflict, having spent six years with the United Nations in Beirut, Lebanon. He has also conducted research and taught at universities in the United States and abroad.

He served at the United Nations in the field of population and development both overseas and in New York City for more than a quarter century. Among his major duties was deputy secretary-general for the 1994 United Nations International Conference for Population and Development.

In addition to completing numerous studies and reports issued under United Nations authorship, he has also authored publications in his own name in such areas as fertility, marriage, population estimates and projections, ageing, urbanization, mortality, gender, international migration, irregular migration and population and development policy. His most recent book is: “Population Levels, Trends and Differentials”.