Alfred Sauvy was born on October 31, 1898 in Villeneuve de la Raho (Pyrénées Orientales) into a Catalan family of "landowner-viticulturists". Married in April 1932 to Marthe Lamberet. One daughter Anne (born March 5, 1934) and two granddaughters, Corine and Marion Bastien.

Education and professional career

• 1920: Graduated from École Polytechnique in 1920
• 1922-1937: Statistician at Statistique Générale
• 1937-1945: Director, Institut de Conjoncture
• November 1938-December 1939: Responsible for economic issues in the Cabinet of Mr. Paul Reynaud
• December 1939-June 1940: Franco-British Committee, reporting to Jean Monnet
• During the occupation: Editor of the Bulletin rouge-brique, a free information sheet on the economic and political situation, without censorship, and general survey on the cost of enemy occupation
• 1940-1959: Professor at the Institut de Sciences Politiques
• April 1945: Appointed General Secretary for Family and Population by General de Gaulle, he preferred to devote himself to research in December 1945
• 1945-1962: Director of the Institut National d'Études Démographiques (I.N.E.D.)
• 1946-1975: Director of the magazine Population
• 1946-1981: French delegate to the United Nations, to the Statistical Commission, then to the Population Commission
• 1947-1974: Member of the Economic and Social Council
• 1951-1972: Chairman of the Commission de la Conjoncture et du Plan (French Economic and Planning Commission)
• 1959-1969: Professor at the Collège de France, Chair of Social Demography: the life of populations
• From 1969: Honorary Professor at the Collège de France
• Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Institut National d'Études Démographiques
• 1990: Contributor to Le Monde

Awards and distinctions

• Grand Officer of the Légion d'Honneur
• Commandeur d'Académie
• Commandeur de la Santé Publique
• Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
• Volunteer Service Medal
• 1937: Bourdin Prize
• 1952: Prix Paul Pelliot
• 1966: Prix de l'Académie des Sciences
• 1975: Prix Paul-Valéry (Fondation de France)
• 1979: "La Vie Économique" prize
• Honorary doctorate from the universities of Geneva, Brussels, Utrecht, Liège, Montreal, Païenne and Barcelona

Academies

• Member of the Section des sciences morales et politiques of the Académie Royale de Bruxelles
• Member of the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei
• Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Boston (Massachusetts)
• Member of the Academy of Philadelphia

Alfred Sauvy died on October 30, 1990 in Paris.

The origin of the expression " Third World " by Alfred Sauvy :

" In 1951, in a Brazilian magazine, I spoke of three worlds, without, however, using the expression "Third World". I coined this expression and used it for the first time in writing in the French weekly "L'Observateur" of August 14 1952. The article ended as follows : "because at last, this Third World, ignored, exploited and despised like the Third State, also wants to be something". I thus transposed Sieyes' famous phrase on the Third Estate during the French Revolution. I didn't add (but I sometimes said, in jest) that one could equate the capitalist world with the nobility and the communist world with the clergy. "