Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, Oxford University
Interdisciplinary research center based at the University of Oxford and Oxford Population Health - disrupting and realigning #demography. Funded by @leverhulme.bsky.social
demography.ox.ac.uk
- Dr. Josh Wilde: "But lower birthrates don’t necessarily mean the population or economy will shrink, especially in the near-term...The engine of adaptation that enabled us to survive the population bomb could help us weather a future with fewer babies." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/h... #demography
- Great start to term with the first LCDS seminar 🎓 by Prof. Prabhat Jha (@countthedead.bsky.social), holder of an amazing bsky handle and also the new Head of NDPH. He gave a wide-ranging overview of his work on mortality, stressing the deep links between demography and population health. 🧵
- Join us today 14:00-15:30 for the terms first LCDS Seminar at Nuffield College! Professor Prabhat Jha will present “Nationwide mortality studies: lessons learned” — insights from large-scale epidemiological research. www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...
- The perfect combination of #demography & downhill at the Alp-Pop conference this week, where LCDS researchers @ridhikashyap.bsky.social, @drjenndowd.bsky.social & @andreatilstra.bsky.social presented (& did important networking après ski). @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social @dondenacentre.bsky.social
- Who owns the numbers that count us? @edithdarin.bsky.social in @bigdatasoc.bsky.social examines how demographic data have become commodified in the digital age — and makes a powerful case for reclaiming them as a common good. @leverhulme.ac.uk journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- 🧬 Does DNA shape your fertility? Is there an “ideal” age to have a child? @melindacmills.bsky.social on her Nature Aging article: www.nature.com/articles/s43... in Les Actualités lesactualites.news/cest-lage-id... RTFlash Science & Technology www.rtflash.fr/article/l-ad... @leverhulme.ac.uk
- 👶 Low fertility in the UK?! Our @drjenndowd.bsky.social joined BBC Radio 4’s More or Less to unpack the data and offer a demographer’s perspective — beyond the panic & myths. 🎧 Listen here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... ✍️ Subscribe to her amazing Substack as well: jenndowd.substack.com
- New dataset on European parental leave policies from 1970-2024! LCDS researcher @sanderwagner.bsky.social helped gather the information to document the UK's parental leave policies in this multi-national project.
- 📢 New dataset for researchers! The new European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) Dataset tracks parenting leave regulations over five decades! It provides harmonised data on maternity, co-parent, paid parental, and job-protected leave across 21 countries from 1970 to 2024. 🔗 eplp-dataset.org
- Next week, we welcome @rebeccasear.bsky.social in our Lecture Series. Rebecca will talk about 21st century eugenics, scientific racism and the role of academia in promoting political ideology. Just register here to participate 👉 rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture... #PhilSci #HPBio
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- The Department of Social Statistics and Demography at the University of Southampton is seeking candidates to apply for fully funded PhD positions through the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership (SCDTP; @scdtp.bsky.social). 🗓️ Deadline for 2026/27 entry: 16 January 2026, 16:00 GMT More info ⬇️
- 🧑🏫 CG Co-Director @melindacmills.bsky.social @oxforddemsci.bsky.social spoke at The #Fiduciary #Investors Symposium, warning that a shrinking #European #population will trigger significant changes in #economic growth and #investor opportunities. Read the full write-up ⬇️ @populationeu.bsky.social
- 📖👨💻🎓 New Courses Alert 🎓👨💻📖 The Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science is launching three upcoming short courses designed for researchers across health, economics, and the social sciences. Led by experts in the field — including @crahal.com — these courses are now open for registration.👇
- 📉 Many countries are seeing falling birth rates—but can rising gender equality reverse the trend? A new study from our centre revisits a major debate in demography and finds a modest fertility rebound at high levels of gender equality. www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/new-stu...
- Our new paper develops and tests a network-based method for estimating death rates in complex humanitarian emergencies. Joint w/ @dennisfeehan.bsky.social and team from Geneva-based NGO @impact-initiatives.bsky.social academic.oup.com/aje/advance-...
- 📢Job Offer‼️New Max Planck Research Group on Reproductive Ageing Interview with D. Susie Lee 이수지 Leader of the Group: demogr.mpg.de/go/RGRA Job: demogr.mpg.de/en/career_6122/jobs…
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- 1/ Concerns about low birth rates & below "replacement" fertility have been in the news a lot lately. But what does "replacement fertility" mean exactly? (Throwback pic to that time I tried replacement fertility all in one go). jenndowd.substack.com/p/what-is-re... #demography #fertility
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- A pleasure to host @philipncohen.com this week for a fantastic talk on pronatalism & many more engaging discussions about open science, public engagment, and more! #demography @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social @drjenndowd.bsky.social @melindacmills.bsky.social @crahal.com @ridhikashyap.bsky.social
- Seminar Alert 🎓🚨: Tomorrow at 2 pm @philipncohen.com will be giving a seminar on: "Authoritarian Pronatalism and the Pyrrhic Defeat" In person: Butler Room at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Online (register in advance): us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
- New study on global digital gender gaps 🧔♂️👩📱🌐: It finds that in low- and middle-income countries - women are 9% less likely to use the 🌐 - 8% less likely to own a 📱 than men ( ~320 million fewer women 🌐 and ~190 million fewer women with 📱) www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/mapping...
- The study is a technical marvel: It used machine-learning 🎰📖 to analzye: - Facebook audience counts - geospatial indicators - household surveys on digital use in 33 countries. This allowed to model gendered internet use & mobile ownership for 2,075 regions in 117 countries
- We conducted a systematic review of the effect of in-utero exposure to ambient air pollution on the sex ratio at birth. Evidence is scarce and we need more studies employing rigorous causal inference designs. Work led by Ursula Gazeley @oxforddemsci.bsky.social, preprint available below.
- Ambient air pollution and the sex ratio at birth: a systematic review and narrative synthesis doi.org/10.1101/2025... @medrxivpreprint.bsky.social by Ursula Gazeley, Hallie Eilerts-Spinelli, @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social post-doc @jasminabdelghany.bsky.social, Ana Bonell & Joshua Wilde
- In Madrid this week? Don’t miss @ramina-sotoudeh.bsky.social presentation "The Hidden Demographics of Prenatal Selection: Evidence from Family DNA" at the UNED inequality/social demography seminar When: 13th Nov, 19.00-20.30 Where: Room Jorge Cavodeassi (OEI), UNED, Calle Bravo Murillo 38
- The UNED inequality and social demography seminar is back, with @ramina-sotoudeh.bsky.social @l-sage.bsky.social @melindacmills.bsky.social @mariavaalavuo.bsky.social @arnoutvanderijt.bsky.social @nicolettabalbo and @danieloesch If you are Madrid, come along! 👇the program for this academic year
- On Tuesday, we hosted Jane Greve (VIVE – Danish Centre for Social Science Research) for a fascinating seminar on “Family Spillovers of Dementia.” Using 20 years of Danish register data, she explored how parental dementia affects adult children’s lives.
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- LCDS Seminar tomorrow: Jane Greve from the Danish Center for Social Science Research will present on "Family Spillovers of Dementia" For those in Oxford, the seminar is from 2:00-3:30pm, in the Chester Room at Nuffield College. www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/upcomin...
- The talk fromer Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau gave at our centre yesterday focussed on the current growth and productivity challenge. His main message: sustainable prosperity depends on growth grounded in consent, investment, and execution—not ideology.
- For those in Oxford, join us today at 2pm in the Butler Room at Nuffield College.
- Tomorrow at 2 pm we have a very special seminar: Bill Morneau, the former Canadian Minister of Finance will be talking about "The Reality of the Growth and Productivity Challenge" www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/upcomin...
- Job Alert: Apply for the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships 2026 by December 15. You will become a part of our fantastic interdisciplinary team at LCDS and help us push the boundaries of demographic research. cc @leverhulme.ac.uk www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/call-ex...
- Our LCDS team meeting with representatives from Pompeu Fabra, to work on future international international collaborations. European demographic research is 🔥
- Tomorrow at 2 pm we have a very special seminar: Bill Morneau, the former Canadian Minister of Finance will be talking about "The Reality of the Growth and Productivity Challenge" www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/upcomin...
- 3 #PostDoc researcher positions at @helsinki.fi in collaboration with IIASA @iiasa.ac.at and MPIDR @mpidr.bsky.social on population projections, migration dynamics, and human capital development #demography #박사후연구 www.vaestoliitto.fi/en/news/post...
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- Very excited to announce that @srhayford.bsky.social, @lesja.bsky.social, and I will be guest-editing a special volume of @prpr-journal.bsky.social on "Contemporary Pronatalism in Demographic Context"! Submissions due March 1, 2026. link.springer.com/collections/...
- Heart full of joy and gratitude for my depicted, literal superhero team 🦸🦸🦸🦸🦸🦸of incredible supervisors Josh Wilde, @ridhikashyap.bsky.social, @melindacmills.bsky.social, and excellent examiners @drjenndowd.bsky.social & @ftorche.bsky.social, as well as my terrific mentors, peers, & friends!!!
- 1/ HUGE congratulations to @jasminabdelghany.bsky.social for passing her DPhil viva w/ no corrections with her dissertation "The impact of in-utero exposure to ambient temperature on maternal health, infant health, and population composition." @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social @oxpop.bsky.social
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- 1/ HUGE congratulations to @jasminabdelghany.bsky.social for passing her DPhil viva w/ no corrections with her dissertation "The impact of in-utero exposure to ambient temperature on maternal health, infant health, and population composition." @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social @oxpop.bsky.social
- 2/ Her important work highlights the risk that rising temperatures will impede global progress on maternal and infant health, and also emphasizes the importance of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), whose recent defunding Jasmin has written about here: osf.io/preprints/so...
- New @pnas.org paper constructing subnational estimates of internet and mobile adoption by gender, including gender gaps, for 117 low- and middle- income countries from 2015 through 2025. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- 🎉 Welcome to Bill Morneau! Former 🇨🇦 Finance Minister, business leader & champion of inclusive policy, Bill joins LCDS & @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social for the coming year — helping connect demography with industry, government & real-world impact. www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/lcds-an...
- Delighted to see our interdisciplinary nest hatch such brilliant work 🪶 This fabulous paper by alumni @hggaddy.bsky.social brings together demography, evolutionary research, and economic history — a true cross-species of ideas!
- Fantastic work by our LCDS alumni @polizzan.bsky.social and Annette Baudish - morality methods applied to fertility - now that is clever 💡
- ✍️ Just out: Annette Baudisch & I delve into the formal demography of fertility, birth, & reproduction timing. 👶 We use methods from mortality research to summarize when in the parental life course children are born. 📆 1/n doi.org/10.1080/0032... @sdu.dk @oxforddemsci.bsky.social @mpidr.bsky.social
- 🎓 Join us for a 4 year fully funded PhD in Health Data Science @Oxford 📊 Predicting Health Outcomes 🔗 www.demography.ox.ac.uk/dphil-opport... 🗣️ The Natural Language of Health and Social Care 🔗 www.demography.ox.ac.uk/dphil-opport... Contact @crahal.com for a chat
- thinking about your next academic home? 🏡✨ imagine: an office where people actually show up, hang out, and do brilliant research on #Demography in Oxford! that’s us 👋 #EarlyCareerResearchers #ResearchFellowships See below 👇 📅 deadline: 15 Dec 2025 🔗 www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/call-ex...
- nonparametric. multiply robust. semiparametrically efficient. 💥the Avengers lineup of causal estimators Felix Elwert, 8 Oct, 2pm 📍 Butler Room, @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social Nonparametric Causal Decomposition of Group Differences w/metrics-and-models.github.io 🔗 demography.ox.ac.uk/news/upcoming-…
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- We welcomed the next generation of @essgn.bsky.social social science genomics researchers in Oxford! ✨ Speakers from industry (deCODE, Genomics), data (UKBiobank), experts from Oxford & beyond + an Editor from Nature Human Behaviour! 📸 More here 👉 www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/lcds-ho...
- Read the great reflection on the workshop by @dr-appie.bsky.social here: communities.springernature.com/posts/a-love...
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- Our Director @melindacmills.bsky.social on the 'impotence' of pronatalist policies 📉: “Silver bullets, quick cash & gimmicks won’t change #Fertility.” Read more 👇 www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/what-russians-really-think-about-putins-baby-boom-drive/ #Demography #Policy
- 🎉 Big congrats to @wensu221.bsky.social Su, Postdoc at LCDS, for winning the Charles Price Prize in #Demography! 🏆 His work bridges national & subpopulation #mortality to reveal hidden patterns in health outcomes. A true star demographer in the making! 🌟 www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/wen-su-...
- Just out in Nature Genetics, @melindacmills.bsky.social, @vincentjstraub.bsky.social Straub & team show how the UK’s largest new biomedical dataset Our Future Health (striving for 5M participants!) can set a global benchmark in #genomics and #health Read: www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/unlocki...
