Vegard Skirbekk

Interested in using polygenic scores (PGS) in social science or health research? We are running a 2-day intensive short course @stats_UCL with @timtmorris.bsky.social (20–21 April 2026): tinyurl.com/5n6hwyxy. Ideal for all quantitative researcher across Social and Health Sciences! Get started!

Kort sagt: Hvis USA skrur av IT-plattformene, blir det veldig mørkt i Norge Les Inga Strümkes kommentar.

Very important op-ed from Inga Strümke (Associate Professor, Norwegian Open AI Lab) on European technology Addiction.

The US doesn't need to threaten us with military force if they have the ability to shut down our digital systems.

@aftenposten.no #Norge #Norway #US #Europe

The successful candidate will receive excellent support and supervision from leading researchers in family demography, fertility, health inequalities, and advanced demographic methods that includes Martin Flatø, Mikko Myrskyla, @rannveigkhart.bsky.social @nhiekel.bsky.social @cdudel.bsky.social

PhD-fellowship (296402) | University of Oslo Job title: PhD-fellowship (296402), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Another 3-year PhD position in Oslo!

ERC-Adv Grant HOMME project:

Health, Cognition, Family, and Employment among Men, led by Professor Vegard Skirbekk.

NOK 550,800–615,000 per year

Deadline: March 31, 2026.
www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

#PhDOpportunity #MensHealth #Demography #Fertility

Join a dynamic research team as a PhD Fellow, exploring men’s health and family dynamics. | FINN.no About the positionWe invite applicants for a three- to four-year position as a PhD research fellow at the Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences

PhD opening @UniOslo: Join a dynamic team exploring men's health & family dynamics in the ERC HOMME project! 3-4 yrs, interdisciplinary (psych, soc, econ, health), Norwegian register data + cohorts. Salary ~NOK 551k-615k. Deadline 31 March 2026.
Apply: www.finn.no/job/ad/45388...

Fertility postponement is not a universal correlate of fertility decline - N-IUSSP Worldwide, the path leading to delayed fertility is more complex than it may appear at first sight. Thomas Spoorenberg and Vegard Skirbekk offer a few keys to better interpret current ... Read more

Fertility postponement is not a universal correlate of fertility decline

www.niussp.org/fertility-an...

Ageing does not necessarily mean dependency burdens will be higher than in the past - even in the countries in the world with the highest life expectancy and the lowest fertility.

Policymakers must factor in health to understand population aging.

www.adb.org/publications...

PhD-Candidate   Ageing and Health The Norwegian National Centre for Ageing and Health (Ageing and Health) is a publicly funded national centre of expertise in ageing and older people’s health in Norway. W...

PhD position in Norway

Focus: Using artificial intelligence (AI) to study intrinsic capacity - the combined physical and mental abilities that allow people to function and thrive as they age.

2411.webcruiter.no/Main2/Recrui...

Dr Zotcheva leads the project and I am a co-supervisor.

Nigerian women and contraceptives: study finds big gaps between the haves and the have-nots Unequal access to contraception poses risks to reproductive-age women, families and Nigeria’s development.

Nigerian women and contraceptives: Study finds big gaps between the haves and the have-nots theconversation.com/nigerian-wom... www.msn.com/en-xl/news/o...

Health, cognition, family, and employment among men (HOMME) - Department of Psychology The project will examine men’s family, work, health and cognition in Norway particularly during the life period most characterized by family transitions and work experiences.

New PostDoc opportunity at HOMME🎓
www.sv.uio.no/psi/english/...

We offer a 3 or 4 year Postdoctoral opportunity in the HOMME project in Oslo - www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Health, cognition, family, and employment among men (HOMME) - Department of Psychology The project will examine men’s family, work, health and cognition in Norway particularly during the life period most characterized by family transitions and work experiences.

New PostDoc opportunity at HOMME🎓
www.sv.uio.no/psi/english/...

We offer a 3 or 4 year Postdoctoral opportunity in the HOMME project in Oslo - www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Some hope that preferences for human interactions will save jobs from automation, but I think we often prefer being served by robots.

From my latest issue, where I also cover progress on crime, AI forecasting progress, belief in Anthropic, and much else.

www.update.news/p/the-prefer...

I’m very happy to share our new paper with Mariana Calderón-Jaramillo and colleagues Jeroen Spijker and Elisenda Renteria.. The study measures the Years of Life Expectancy with Care Needs combining (multi)morbidity and social care needs states. Link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Our new Lancet study from the Norwegian HUNT cohort shows that modifying risk factors across adulthood relat to dementia, including family and work-related factors. www.thelancet.com/action/showP...

Superstition effects versus cohort effects: is it bad luck to be born in the year of the fire horse in Japan? - Review of Economics of the Household The year of the fire horse (called “Hinoeuma” in Japanese) is one of the sixty Chinese zodiac symbols used to count years. According to superstition, fire horse women are said to have troubled marriag...

In 1966, Japan's Fire Horse year superstition led to a ~25% drop in births due to fears about girls' futures. A study confirmed women born then faced no disadvantages in education, marriage rates, or household resources
Will fertility of 2026 be affected? 🤔
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Thanks for raising this. @vegardskirbekk.bsky.social is a v. important thinker on this subject. It's mind-numbing to many of us in this realm that the clear link between #pronatalism and #planetaryhealth has been muddied in the last few years, under the influence of vested interests and ideologues.

<em>Population and Development Review</em> | Population Council Journal | Wiley Online Library This study documents the concentration of childbearing to later reproductive ages, analyzing global patterns of fertility postponement from 1950 to 2040. We study late fertility (ages 30+) and very l...

Globally, more than one out of three births now occur to women aged 30 and above, compared to only one in four in 1990. New paper by Thomas Spoorenberg & @vegardskirbekk.bsky.social

Our paper "Potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia in Norway (HUNT4 70+)" is out & open access in Lancet Healthy Longevity!

Direct link: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... Grateful to the team % participants.

Korea, Japan Turn Demographic Crisis into Opportunity Korea, Japan Turn Demographic Crisis into Opportunity South Korea, Japan collaborate to transform demographic crises into growth via tech, labor

Korea-Japan Turn Aging-Low Birthrate Crisis into Opportunity www.chosun.com/english/opin...

Great answers! One thing I keep forgetting to mention, which @vegardskirbekk.bsky.social draws out in his book, is the importance of healthy aging as one solution to lower birth rates (which also comes from family-friendly and human capital investment)

Good! An early insight of human centered design is that it was possible to reduce airplane crashes by introducing tactile switches and toggle that did not create confusion or require people to take their eyes away from their core tasks donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-origin...

New study on rapidly decreasing mortality among those with Down syndrome

Is Religiosity Related to the Risk of Technology-Induced Job Loss? This study tests a hypothesis that religious individuals are less likely than non-religious individuals to work in occupations associated with a risk of technology-induced job loss due to a general te...

Is Religiosity Related to the Risk of Technology-Induced Job Loss?
New study with Morten Blekesaune using large scale population data on the relationship between job loss risk and religiosity
www.scup.com/doi/abs/10.1...

There is no young continent. Asia and Africa have similar aging burden as the west www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

<em>Population and Development Review</em> | Population Council Journal | Wiley Online Library This study documents the concentration of childbearing to later reproductive ages, analyzing global patterns of fertility postponement from 1950 to 2040. We study late fertility (ages 30+) and very l....

We study late fertility (ages 30+) and very late fertility (ages 35+) trends at the global, subregional, and national levels. Globally, more than one out of three births in 2023 occurs to women aged 30 and above, compared to only one in four in 1990.

doi.org/10.1111/padr...

Is World Population Peaking Now? I think population decline will be a relief, like an escape valve in a pressure cooker. As we shrink in numbers we will grow in other areas, like resources per capita and free time.

Interview on global population change with Chris Bystroff, a Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in New York, where he heads a lab funded by NSF:

Bystroff concludes:

"I believe we will Decline and Prosper (book by Vegard Skirbekk)."

www.resilience.org/stories/2024...

Population growth at 2.55 per cent is shaping Pakistan’s future Population growth, when unaccompanied by strong human development, traps an economy in a cycle of low productivity and low investment.

Population growth at 2.55 per cent is shaping Pakistan’s future - Pakistan - DAWN.COM www.dawn.com/news/1957907

Glad and honoured to have been invited to give a keynote in Taiwan November 2025 titled 'Embracing the inevitable - Effectively adapting to the demographic transition'.

The conference theme was ‘Foreseeing the Future: Educational Reforms in Response to Declining Birth Rates’

Vis oversettelse

Decoder: Are we over worried about underpopulation? In Japan and elsewhere, governments grapple with a frightening future: Too few young to support too many old. How big a problem is this shrinkage?

news-decoder.com/decoder-are-...

The Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics (CPop) will host an ERC Workshop on "A Unified Perspective on Formation and Dissolution Processes in Demography," 9-11 March 2026, at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense.

Abstract deadline: 19 December 2025.
www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...