Job description
As a PhD student you will participate in the VIDI-project The Power of the Family. Family Influences on Long-Term Fertility Decline in Europe, 1850-2010. This project is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and directed by Dr Hilde Bras (principal investigator).
Over the last 160 years a remarkable decline of fertility has taken place in most European societies. Intriguingly, substantial national and regional disparities in fertility levels and reproductive change have been prevalent and remain existent. By combining previous economic and ideational explanations with theories on family influences and the cultural variation therein, the project aims at opening up new vistas for understanding long-term population change.
Together with the principal investigator and two other PhD students, you will study the relationship between family and reproductive behaviour across Europe and over time from either a qualitative or quantitative perspective, using micro and macro level data.
Key themes in the project are:
1. the composition and geographical dispersion of kinship networks;
2. the influence of kin support and competition on reproductive behaviour;
3. the intergenerational transmission of reproductive behaviour;
4. sibling interdependencies in reproductive behaviour;
5. husband-wife relations and reproductive behaviour.
PhD student 1 will explore the project’s themes through oral history and qualitative documents.
PhD student 2 will investigate the project’s themes on the basis of quantitative historical micro data for cohorts born between 1850 and 1920.
PhD student 3 will examine the project’s themes on the basis of quantitative contemporary micro data for cohorts born since 1920.
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 90 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 live. 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”.
Three PhD Positions in (Historical) Demography
