In the context of social research, the population refers to the entire group of people who are the focus of a study or survey and about whom the researcher wants to draw conclusions. The population can be defined by specific characteristics, such as age, gender, ethnicity, geographic location, or membership in a particular group. Due to practical constraints, researchers often study a smaller subset of the population, known as a sample, and then generalise their findings from the sample back to the larger population, provided that the sample is representative of the population as a whole. Defining the target population clearly is a crucial step in the research design process.