DONDENA Seminar - Vegard Skirbekk

This presentation will discuss a new ERC adv grant project focused on men – HOMME, Health, cognition, family, and employment among men. It will focus on reproduction. HOMME studies how men’s (changing) family and working lives influence their health and cognition. To date, insufficient research has addressed the consequences of these changes on men’s health and cognition. HOMME utilizes on the wealth of available data to examine the relationship between men’s rapidly changing family and working lives and cognition across adulthood, as well as across cohorts, periods and between communities. Men’s fertility is influenced by a complex interplay of biological, environmental, and societal factors. This presentation examines key determinants of male reproductive health, including genetic and social predispositions, lifestyle choices, and normative and economic shifts. Particular focus is given to changing mating structures, new determinants of family formation and also health/social outcomes of men's reproduction. 

Vegard Skirbekk is a social scientist specializing in demographic analysis and cohort studies. He has received research grants from ERC, PEW and UNESCO. Skirbekk’s main research focus is on health, productivity, and associated determinants from a multidisciplinary perspective, with an emphasis on the role of changing labor market demands, technological and cultural changes as well as variation in the attitudes, beliefs, and competences of new cohorts. He has published widely on comparative health and cultural studies for countries from all world regions. Skirbekk has worked extensively on causality, global comparative assessments and projection.