Keyfitz studied at
McGill University, graduating with a B.S. in
mathematics in 1934. He worked for the
Dominion Bureau of Statistics in Canada from 1936 to 1959, meanwhile earning a Ph.D. in
sociology from the
University of Chicago in 1952. In 1959, he took a professorship at the
University of Toronto; he moved from there to the University of Chicago and the
University of California, Berkeley before joining the faculty of
Harvard University as Andelot Professor of Sociology in 1972. From 1978 to 1980 he served as Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. He retired from Harvard in 1981, only to take another faculty position at
Ohio State University and then to direct the Population Program at the
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria from 1983 to 1993. He also consulted frequently in
Indonesia over a period of many years. He was president of the
Population Association of America from 1970 to 1971. ==Awards and honors==