November 15, 2024 | News | Award

Julia Mead Knox Memorial Prize for Henrik Schubert

The Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and the University of Oxford have honored Henrik Schubert, a doctoral student in the Laboratory of Fertility and Well-Being at the MPIDR and the University of Oxford, for his paper “Too many men? Subnational population imbalances and male childlessness in Finland.”

Henrik Schubert won Julia Mead Knox Memorial Prize. © MPIDR

His study is the first to examine the relationship between partner markets and childlessness among men using individual-level data. The paper shows that regional partner markets become increasingly imbalanced over time, which is the consequence of changes in subnational population and education structures.

The effects of partner markets are particularly pronounced among low-income men. The authors hypothesize that in face of increasing competition, these men lack the resources to compete. Thus, some men face a triple disadvantage: if they live in sparsely populated areas with little infrastructure and have fewer economic resources there, their risk of remaining childless also increases.

The judging panel for the award was Melinda Mills, Ridhi Kashyap and Charles Rahel. Henrik Schubert was awarded the prize in mid-October as part of the Demographic Science Summit. The five-year anniversary of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science was celebrated at this event.

About the Julia Mead Knox Memorial Prize for Research in Demography and Population Health

Following the tragic loss of Julia Mead Knox, the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and the University of Oxford have established the Prize in her honour. It aims to encourage scholarship from DPhil students across all departments, divisions and colleges at the University of Oxford, where the submitted essay can be on any topic related to demography and population health, broadly defined. Preference will be given to those working in Julia’s research area of genetics/genomics, inclusivity and public health.