May 04, 2023 | News | Congratulations

Julia Hellstrand Obtained Her Doctorate

© MPIDR

Julia Hellstrand successfully defended her doctoral dissertation “Drivers and future of the fertility decline in the 2010s - an analysis of Finland and other Nordic countries” at the University of Helsinki on Saturday, April 29.

Julia’s dissertation analyzes the demographic and socio-structural determinants of the recent and unprecedentedly strong fertility decline in the Nordic countries, develops novel approaches to forecasting cohort fertility, and in light of the dissertation findings argues that the “Nordic Model” of high and stable fertility may have to be revised. The dissertation is available freely here helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/356298

The work is pioneering not only in terms of content but also in terms of context, as this was the first ever Social Data Science dissertation at the University of Helsinki, and in Finland.

Julia’s dissertation was supervised by Mikko Myrskylä (MPIDR) and Jessica Nisen (University of Turku). The Thesis Advisory Committee included in addition Hill Kulu from St. Andrews, and the opponent of the dissertation defense was Gunnar Andersson from Stockholm University.

Julia was part of the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science (PHDS) 2019 cohort and joins the rapidly growing 2023 Alumni cohort.