Theories, Data, and Visualization for Global Analyses of Family Change

The registration period for this course is closed.

Registrations will open after January 10th, 2025.

Course description

This course provides an introduction to global family demography, focusing on both theoretical and practical approaches. It will cover seminal theories on family systems and family change with a focus on cross-country comparative analyses, macro-level perspectives, and current debates. Additionally, students will be introduced to essential data infrastructures to conduct research within the field of family demography. Lastly, we will cover data visualization techniques that focus on communicating macro-level and comparative findings

Content

Day 1: Theoretical Foundation – Introductory lecture by Dr. Albert Esteve; overview of seminal macro-level and middle-range theories in comparative family demography; critical discussion of these theories; benefits and limitations of comparative cross-national analyses.
Day 2: Data Infrastructure – Exploration of core datasets to study global family change; introduction to different analytical perspectives (household vs. individual); discussion of comparability, advantages, and disadvantages of the different datasets.
Day 3: Data Visualization – Introduction to effective visual data communication for comparative research; examples and hands-on exercises with the datasets introduced in Day 2, using RStudio, that are based on recent demographic publications.

Learning Highlights

Students will become familiar with the theoretical foundations of comparative family demography and contemporary debates in the field. By the end of the course, students will be able to access and use core datasets to study global family change from individual and household perspectives, and will have a solid understanding of how to effectively visualize their findings.

Target audience

This course will be useful for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as early career researchers, who are interested in family demography.

Required training or equipment

Students must bring their own laptop with RStudio installed.

Students will need to have basic quantitative skills and first experience using R for data analysis.

Lecturer

Maria Pohl

Maria Pohl is a PhD student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and works within the ERC project “Intergenerational Coresidence in Global Perspective”. Maria holds a MSc in Socio-Ecological Economics and Policy (WU, Vienna) and a MSc in Population Studies (University of Groningen). Before starting her PhD, she participated in the European Doctoral School of Demography. Her research focuses on family change, fertility, and social inequalities.

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Simin Dai

Simin Dai is currently pursuing a PhD at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and works within the ERC project “Intergenerational Coresidence in Global Perspective”. Simon holds a MPhil in Sociology and Demographic from the University of Oxford. Before starting her PhD, she participated in the European Doctoral School of Demography. Her research focuses on fertility, living arrangements, intergenerational processes, and social inequalities.

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Assessor Acadèmic

Dr. Albert Esteve: he is director of the CED and Professor at the Department of Sociology (UAB). He recently obtained his second ERC Grant (CORESIDENCE: Intergenerational Coresidence in Global Perspective: Dimensions of Change). Albert investigates aspects related to demographics, marriage formation, marriage markets, and the structure of households, both nationally and internationally.

Dr. Juan Galeano: he is a researcher at the (CED), where he is currently responsible for the data infrastructures of the CORESIDENCE project. He is also the co-principal investigator of the project “Bringing Social and Computational Sciences Together: Unraveling Household Composition and Change through the Implementation of the First World-Scale Multilevel Analysis”, a collaborative initiative between CED and the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC).