Demography affects our social lives: “Population decline undermines our welfare state”

Why did you become a demographer and focus your research on populations?

During my undergraduate in Economics, I went on an exchange year at the London School of Economics. There I took a class that was actually called 'Population and Society'. I loved that class because it drew upon all the social sciences, from anthropology to sociology, economics, politics and even public health. It was integrating all of these ideas from many different disciplines to deal with social problems facing human societies. From that point on, I shifted my focus to population economics to finish my degree. And subsequently choose a sociology master's and PhD program with a demography specialization.

What are your main research areas of interest?

In my research, I look at partnership formation and cohabitation. So what makes people pick their partner? What makes them stay together or split up? I have done comparison studies between the US and Scandinavia. And it's interesting to observe the differences in these countries. For example, marriage is still very 'big' in the US. A lot of people want to get married. While in Sweden, it's much more common for a couple to cohabit, although marriage is still aspirational. And what's interesting to observe is the effect these partnership structures have on the (in)equality between couples and the outcome for children. In Sweden, almost half of children are born from cohabiting couples. Even still you see a difference in children's outcomes, as children from cohabiting couples are less advantaged and more likely to experience the separation of their parents. This is something for researchers and policymakers to think about. How can we support different kinds of families in ways to equalize these outcomes? Just because you are born to unmarried parents, that shouldn't disadvantage you somehow.

In the past decades, overpopulation is often viewed as a threat to the environment and society. As a response, some couples opt to voluntarily just have fewer or only one child. How do you view this trend? 

I think you can look at this from different perspectives. Optimists would say that the more people there are, the more geniuses and brains there are to work on our biggest challenges. But I also understand that people want to be part of the solution to our environmental problems by choosing to have one child. At the same time, it's important to realize that not every child has the same environmental impact. And it could very well be that you can raise, let's say, two children in a way that has less impact than raising one child that consumes a lot. And this doesn't only have to do with individual choices. It also depends on the community and country where you live.

What do you see as one of the biggest global social challenges related to population?

In the next 50 years, there will be most likely a population decline in Europe, which poses serious issues for the welfare state as we know it. There is consensus among demographers that we also can't migrate our way out of this for political and practical reasons. We need a reasonably large working population to support children, the elderly, disabled people, and parents on parental leave. When fertility declines far below two children per woman, so many couples have one kid or no kids, you no longer have a population structure that looks like a pyramid but a diamond. The ‘population pyramid’ becomes top-heavy, with more older than younger people. This really undermines the traditional social welfare state because there are not enough working people. We already see this happening in Japan, Korea and some Eastern European countries. But also in Spain and Italy, fertility is dropping because of societal problems with housing and jobs. People take longer to find a house and a job and start to have a family later. Policy makers face the challenge of reimagining just social policies that don’t rely on fertility and migration as the engine of the economy.

What are your ambitions with the Population and Society pillar?

My ambition for this pillar is to highlight how the population creates the backdrop for many things we do as social scientists and policymakers. I know that demography is a very niche field, but still, it has an effect on everything. It affects how we build our cities, where people live, how we move, and our family composition. I want to make students aware of this by giving courses about population and stimulating them to put on the population lens to understand how population shapes those things. For example, with my current student intern Natasha Ogier-Russell, a second year MISOC student, we are looking at how the population will influence meat consumption and animal rights. But also bringing the population lens to the other pillars. This year I am looking with dr. Pieter Tuytens how population intersects with long term policymaking. Our pillars are so different, which is a good spark for new ideas and new energy.