Job description
As a PhD student you will participate in the project Agency, Gender, and Economic Development in the World Economy 1850-2000. This project explores how ‘agency’, conceptualized as the potential for individual decision-making at the levels of households, economic activity and political participation, contributed to global economic development and vice versa.
This question, which is at the core of current theorizing in economic history, requires innovative use of existing datasets and creation of new datasets, elaboration of concepts in collaboration with leading experts, and extensive cooperation between researchers working at both micro and macro levels. The project is funded by NWO, and directed by Prof. Jan Luiten van Zanden and Prof. Jan Kok.
Your research (the third subproject) will focus on the role of human capital in economic development.
Unified Growth Theory postulates an intricate connection between human capital and the acceleration of economic growth. Is this borne out by the facts? What kind of human capital (e.g. literacy, numeracy) is most important, and what is the role of female education and training? You will also elaborate the links between family systems and human capital: what kind of incentives and obstructions can be found in the rules and patterns of marriage and co-residence? For instance, how detrimental is early marriage for female education and thus for women’s role in enhancing human capital?
You will be based at Radboud University Nijmegen, and you will be part of the Historical Demography research group led by Prof. Theo Engelen and Prof. Jan Kok.
Organization
Radboud University Nijmegen is one of the leading academic communities in the Netherlands, renowned for its leafy campus, modern buildings, and state-of-the-art equipment. It has seven faculties and enrolls over 17,500 students in approximately 121 study programmes. The university is situated in Nijmegen, the oldest city in the Netherlands, close to the German border, on the banks of the river Waal. Nijmegen has a rich history and its city centre is one of the liveliest in the Netherlands.
Your research will be embedded in the institute for Historical, Literary and Cultural Studies (HLCS) at the Faculty of Arts within the theme “Public and private lives. You will be based at the Department of History, where the project is part of the Department’s research programme “LIFE. The socio-cultural realities of human life courses in East and West”.
PhD position in a project on human capital and the world economy
