Weekly News, December 5, 2023 - Population Sciences

On Wednesday, December 6th, please join us for our last Brown Bag of the semester with Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, who will present “What We Do, and Don’t, Learn from Black/White Mortality Disparities.” This talk is at 12pm, 310 Social Sciences Building. Zoom option. Zoom ID: 985 2901 0198. Passcode DEMOG_BB

Abstract:

Black Americans live, on average, four fewer years than white Americans do. In broad strokes, this talk asks what this lifespan difference tells us about the nature of racial inequality, and about what it would mean to provide redress for racial harms. Lifespan difference is a workhorse concept for understanding the degree of racial inequity and how it has changed over time. But how best to measure that difference to capture useful information about inequities is less clear. This talk proposes multiple families of strategy for making sense of how much lifespan Black Americans are missing compared with white Americans and asks whether those strategies really tell us what we want them to. It concludes with a proposed framework for incorporating lifespan inequities into reparations for American racial subordination and violence.

Bio:

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. A sociologist and demographer, she studies racial inequality in mortality in the historical and contemporary United States, and specializes in finding comparisons and metrics that illuminate the human meaning of mortality disparities. She has extensively researched the Covid-19 pandemic in Minnesota, where she also co-founded an award-winning community vaccination organization (the Seward Vaccine Equity Project). She is also a demographic methodologist, developing models designed to clarify relationships between micro and macro perspectives on population processes.

See further announcements and opportunities below.

EVENTS

December 6 | 12-1pm | UC Berkeley Demography | Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota: “What We Do, and Don’t, Learn from Black/White Mortality Disparities.” Her talk is at 12pm, 310 Social Sciences Building. Zoom option. Zoom ID: 985 2901 0198. Passcode DEMOG_BB. Event page is here.

OPPORTUNITIES

PAA Annual Awards. Recognize a fellow demographer (or yourself) who has contributed to the profession. Awards include:

Awardees are announced at the PAA 2024 Meeting in Columbus, Ohio, awards come with a cash prize. Nominations close on January 31, 2024. Read more and nominate.

Conference: Gender and Social Inequality in Fertility. Oslo, 21-22 March 2024. The aim of this conference is to foster a more comprehensive understanding of the factors driving fertility development in industrialized countries. Papers will address questions such as why fertility trends differ between men and women, and how social inequality might explain variation in people’s childbearing choices. We welcome papers with both national and cross-national perspectives. We encourage submissions that empirically examine the stratification of fertility preferences and behavior, but we are also open for theoretical reflections on gender inequality and social inequality in fertility.

Keynote Speakers: Arnstein Aassve, Bocconi University; Nicole Hiekel, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Deadline to submit is December 11, 2023. Apply here.

Research Opportunity for Undergraduate Students: NextGenPop Undergraduate Program in Population Research. Application open for Summer 2024. Duke University, June 2-15, 2024. NextGenPop is an undergraduate program in population research that aims to increase the diversity of the population field and nurture the next generation of population scientists. Students from underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. NextGenPop Fellows will study population composition and change through the lens of pressing contemporary issues, including race and income inequalities, health disparities, immigration, and family change. The program includes a 2-week, in-person, on-campus summer experience and subsequent virtual components focused on research and professional development, as well as opportunities for mentorship and networking at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America (PAA). The program provides a stipend, room, board, and travel support. NextGenPop activities are coordinated by PAA and supported by an expert Advisory Committee and consortium of population research centers from universities across the United States. Funding comes from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (R25 HD105602, PIs Marcy Carlson and Kelly Musick). Submission deadline is February 5, 2024. Learn more and apply.