Wednesday 24th of June 2015 at Nuffield college, Oxford, 9-17:00

Sex ratios are well known to affect union formation and childbearing. The “mating squeeze” is much discussed in Asia, yet actual patterns of family formation do not always correspond to the predicted shortage of women. On the other hand, local sex ratios in Europe remain little studied but may have important effects on fertility, childlessness, and antisocial behaviour.

The workshop brings together scholars studying fertility and sex ratios in Asia and Europe. Questions to be discussed include the effects of adult sex ratios on childlessness, fertility timing, gender equity, and marriage and divorce in different societies. We present a new model for estimating the “mating squeeze” taking into account social and cultural characteristics and apply it to data from India and Finland.  The workshop ends with the documentary film “About forming a family”, made in Taiwan, India and Finland.

Participation is free and includes lunch + tea&coffee breaks. There is room for 35 participants. To register, send an e-mail to stuart.basten[a]spi.ox.ac.uk. Participants will be accepted on a first come, first served basis.

Programme

09:00       Spatial patterns of sex ratios at birth in Nepal

                 Melanie Channon and Stuart Basten, University of Oxford

09:40       A probabilistic framework for studying age-specific incidence of marriage:
                 applications to the “marriage squeeze” in India 

                 Sangita Kulathinal, University of Helsinki and Väestöliitto

10:20-10:50  tea & coffee

10:50       Marriage markets and socio-demographic change in India

                  Ridhi Kashyap, University of Oxford

11:30       The impact of sex ratio and economic status on local birth rates in the UK

                  Abby Chipman, University of Portsmouth

12:10-13:40  buffet lunch

13:40       More males, more violence? Empirical evidence on the consequences of biased
                  sex ratios from Sweden registers and German school data.

                  Sebastian Schnettler, University of Konstanz 

14:20       Sex ratios and family formation: combining micro- and macro-level register data
                  from Finnish municipalities

                  Lassi Lainiala and Anna Rotkirch, Väestöliitto 

15:00-15:30  tea & coffee

15:30-16:15  Walk over to Department of Social Policy and Intervention, 32 Barnett Square

16:15       UK premiere of documentary film by Janne Laiho, Yamicreative: About forming a family

16:45       Discussion and closing remarks

17:00-19:00  Drinks and snack in the Garden of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention
                        (combined with celebration of two-year anniversary of openpop.org)

Please note that participants are assumed to arrange their travels and accommodation independently.  The workshop is organized by the research project Precarious Family Formation together with the Oxford Centre for Population Resarch (OXPOP). We are grateful to the KONE foundation for financial support.

More information: anna.rotkirch[a]vaestoliitto.fi and stuart.basten[a]spi.ox.ac.uk.