The Centre for Global Health, Population, Poverty, and Policy at the University of Southampton School of Social Sciences, in conjunction with the ESRC are holding a Seminar on Fertility and Poverty, focusing on micro and macro linkages.

The seminar takes from on the 28th and 29th of January.

A limited number of bursaries are available to UK students wishing to attend and willing to submit a poster. the closing date for bursaries is 4th January.

Details regarding registration, the programme and bursaries can be found here.

The University of Southhampton are hosting a workshop on ‘fertility and poverty: micro and macro linkages’ from 28th to 29th January 2010.

Papers are being invited that address the following:

i) New evidence on the linkages between fertility and poverty (at both macro and micro levels)
ii) Barriers to contraceptive use and safe abortion amongst those living in poverty
iii) Evidence on the intergenerational flow of wealth and high fertility as insurance for old-age security hypothesis
iv) Interventions and strategies for meeting high unmet need for family planning among the under-served that have worked (e.g. male involvement, voucher schemes, social marketing)
v) Methodological advances in measuring unmet need for family planning

more details here

A new book launched under the Understanding Population Trends and Processes  (UPTAP) programme, edited by John Stillwell,  Ernestina Coast and Dylan Kneale

     Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility

      Understanding Population Trends and Processes – Volume 1

      Stillwell, John; Coast, Ernestina; Kneale, Dylan (Eds.)

      2009, Approx. 350 p., Hardcover

      ISBN: 978-1-4020-9681-5

      More information

Many parts of the world are experiencing rapid demographic restructuring, resulting in an ageing population with increasingly significant work and care pressures on cohorts less able or willing to provide support. This book examines some of the important trends that have underpinned reductions in fertility, including delayed child-bearing and increased childlessness. It demonstrates how relationships between partners have resulted in new living arrangements with changing attitudes from marriage to co-habitation as the social norm, and it considers the health and well-being for particular at risk groups such as the elderly and stepparents as well as aspects of mobility such as household migration and commuting to school.

The book brings together a series of studies that all involve quantitative analyses of secondary data from censuses, surveys or administrative records. The trends and patterns reported provide new and interesting insights into behaviour of the household and the roles of adults and children, and point to questions of critical importance for practitioners and policy makers.

“This book is the first of three volumes on ‘ Understanding Population Trends and Processes’. Volume 2 will report the findings of research on a further set of dimensions including population change, deprivation, educational attainment, employment, health and well-being, identity, religiosity, social values and trust, whilst Volume 3 will have a more specific focus on ethnicity and integration.”

Conference – ‘Ageing in Latin America: Developing the Research Agenda’

The demographic ageing of societies represents one of the major challenges for the 21st century. As fertility has fallen, longevity has increased, with older people living longer and healthier old ages. The experience and meaning of old age is being transformed. However, in Latin America the context for this is very different from other world regions. Population ageing is taking place much more rapidly than it has done in Europe and North America for example, and against a background of limited health care and social protection. Both collaborative research and data collection are now needed to better understand the implications.

The Oxford Institute of Ageing is pleased to announce the first conference in Oxford on “Ageing in Latin America”, which will take place at the Oxford Institute of Ageing on July 2-3, 2009.

The programme includes key speakers from all over Latin America and from the UK, including:

Armando Barrientos, Manchester University, UK

Sylvia Beales, HelpAge International, London, UK

Ricardo Iacub, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Rosita Kornfeld Matte, Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile

George Leeson, Institute of Ageing, Oxford University, UK

Blanca Lopez La Vera, Pontificia Universidad Católica, San Miguel, Peru

Conference attendance is free, registration is mandatory; deadline for registrations is 1 June 2009.

Please download the programme and registration form from our website:

http://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/events/conferences-workshops

A flyer is available here: http://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/system/files/LARNAConferenceflyer.pdf   

This conference is sponsored by the British Academy.

Call for participants

‘Fertility declines in the past, present and future: what we don’t know and what we need to know’

A joint workshop of

 the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research,  

the British Society for Population Studies

and

the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure

Dates: 15-17^th July 2009

Location: Cambridge Group for the History of Population, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge & Downing College, Cambridge, UK

Organising committee

Dr Eilidh Garrett, Cambridge Group (eilidh.garrett@btinternet.com )

Dr Rebecca Sear, London School of Economics (r.sear@lse.ac.uk )

Dr Mikolaj Szoltysek, Max Planck Institute of Demographic Research (szoltysek@demogr.mpg.de )

Administrative Team:

Anne Shepherd BSPS

Birgit Moeller MPIDR

Workshop description

Fertility decline is now universal. But, despite decades of research, we still have no universal explanation for why fertility declines. Changes in reproductive patterns due to the demographic transition have been a central focus of research within post-war demography. However, over recent years fertility research has confronted challenges to almost all its initial presumptions, models and theories. This critical process has been accompanied by an extensive accumulation of detailed empirical evidence which has emphasized localized cultural, economic and environmental factors affecting family formation rules and couples’ reproductive decisions in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, this new evidence has been piling up faster than its theoretical implications could be assimilated.

The time is therefore right to assess the current state of research into fertility decline, and the theories underpinning it, to suggest future directions for both research and policy. At this meeting, we intend to gather an inter-disciplinary and international group of researchers to discuss what is known about fertility decline, what remains unknown, and how might the unknown become known and better understood. It is our hope that bringing together representative demographers, economists, historical demographers, evolutionary biologists  and anthropologists drawn from of all three ‘strands’ of fertility research  –  i.e. working in the context of historic, contemporary developed and contemporary developing populations – who do not often have the opportunity to meet and communicate fruitfully with one another,  will facilitate new energies and research initiatives to understand fertility change in the past, present and future. Our intention is to re-evaluate ways in which fertility research has been conducted so far, and to open new horizons by pushing forward methodological and theoretical frameworks for the study of human reproduction. Such an endeavour to generate a new understanding of fertility trends is particularly timely given current concerns across the contemporary developed world about extremely low rates of fertility. 

Conference programme

We intend the format of the meeting to a mix of short presentations of pre-read papers followed by discussion panels, leading to more general discussion. The pre-read format will allow participants to make best use of the time available during the workshop to move forward the discussion. The number of participants will be limited so that all those attending can actively take part in the discussions.

Speakers & discussants

The following have stated their intention of attending as either speakers or members of discussion panels:

George Alter, Indiana University

Greg Clark, University of California, Davis

John Cleland, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

David Coleman, University of Oxford

Paul Demeny, Population Council

Tim Dyson, London School of Economics

Joshua Goldstein/Sebastian Klüsener, Max Planck Institute of Demographic Research

Ruth Mace, University College London

Geoffrey McNicoll, Population Council

Mike Murphy, London School of Economics

Lesley Newson, University of Exeter

Máire Ní Bhrolcháin, University of Southampton

Dimiter Philipov, Vienna Institute of Demography

David Reher, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Tomáš Sobotka, Vienna Institute of Demography

Simon Szreter, University of Cambridge

Arland Thornton, University of Michigan

Dirk Van de Kaa, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute

Frans van Poppel, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute

Sarah Walters, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Chris Wilson, University of St Andrews

Bob Woods, University of Liverpool                 

Call for participants

We would like to invite applications for the remaining places for participants from individuals working in the field of fertility decline who wish to contribute to this workshop. We already have a full line-up of speakers but would like to invite non-presenting participants to attend the workshop and engage in discussion and debate. Please copy your email response to all 3 members of the organising committee (at the addresses given above) by 15 May 2009 including a short statement of your research activities and the reasons for your interest in participation in this meeting. Owing to the limitation on the number of participants it may not be possible to accept all applications to take part in this workshop, so please state as clearly as possible your reasons for wishing to take part.

Those responding to this call should be aware that they will be expected to meet their own travel, subsistence and accommodation costs. However, a small number of travel bursaries (to a maximum of £100 each, on provision of receipts) will be available for post-graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. Please state in your email whether you would like to be considered for one of these bursaries.

BSPS Prize 2009

Entries are invited for the 2009 BSPS Prize.
This is awarded to the entry judged to be the best MSc. Dissertation on a demographic topic during the year 2008 (which would normally be at or around distinction level). Applicants should supply four copies of their dissertation, which do not need to be bound – electronic submissions can also be accepted.

Please note that all entries should be submitted by the institution awarding the degree, or by the supervising academic, and not by the authors themselves. A maximum of two entries per institution will be accepted. A word limit of 12,000 words per entry is encouraged, on the basis that it is very difficult to judge and compare entries of vastly differing lengths. However, longer dissertations may also be entered, with a section not exceeding the given word limit being nominated for judging.

A cash prize of £300 is offered, which will be increased to £400 if there is a tie for first place and the Prize is split between two winners. The winner(s) will be announced at the BSPS Conference in September.

For the purposes of this prize, demography is defined as
1. the scientific study of human populations, especially with reference to their size, structure and distribution
2. the scientific study of the determining processes, such as fertility, mortality and migration, and
3. the relationship of these with the social, economic and cultural context within which they exist.

Entries should be received by 31 May 2009 at the BSPS Secretariat, PS201, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, or pic@lse.ac.uk