Irene Barnes Taeuber

Irene Barnes Taeuber (December 25, 1906 – February 24, 1974) was an American demographer who worked for the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, where she edited the journal Population Index from 1936 to 1954. Her scholarly work is credited with helping to establish the science of demography.

Life Irene Barnes was born on December 25, 1906, in Meadville, Missouri. She graduated from the University of Missouri in 1927, earned a master's degree in anthropology from Northwestern University in 1928, and completed her doctorate in sociology from the University of Minnesota in 1931. But her most significant work was the book The Population of Japan (Princeton University Press, 1958). This work "demonstrates the power of demographic analysis ... as an instrument for the description of social change". She was given honorary doctorates by Smith College in 1960, and by the Western College for Women in 1965.