Aleksey Shchur

From 13 to 18 July, the XXX International Population Conference (IPC2025) was held in Brisbane, Australia, organised by the International Union for the Study of Population (IUSSP) in conjunction with the Australian National University. The conference is held every four years and is considered one of the key events in global demographic science.

From July 28 to August 9, 2024, as part of the Student Expeditions Program of the Educational Initiatives Foundation of the HSE University “Rediscovering Russia”, the staff of the International Laboratory for Population and Health organized an expedition in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra, dedicated to the study of fertility and reproductive intentions. The expedition heads - Alexey Shchur and Vera Sokolova with a team of 10 students, including postgraduate demographers, students of the master's program “Demography”, bachelor's programs “Sociology”, “Geography of Global Change and Geoinformation Technologies”, visited Khanty-Mansiysk, Surgut, Kogalym, as well as the Russkinskaya village of Surgut district.
The purpose of the expedition was to study what factors (socio-economic, infrastructural, personal) determine the gap between the wanted number of children and the actual (expected) one, and to how much regional measures to support families influence reproductive decision-making. During the expedition, more than 900 respondents were interviewed and expert meetings were held with relevant departments and organizations that develop and implement demographic policy in the region.

On October 24, 2023, the staff of theInternational Laboratory for Population and Health presented a new tool for research in health and mortality of the Russian population: the Russian Database of Short-term Mortality Fluctuations, created within the framework of the project "Monitoring and Forecasting of Life Expectancy Based on Current Statistics"

From October 16 to 20, the International Laboratory for Population and Health of HSE University, Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Center and the Strategic Project «National Centre of Science, Technology and Socio-Economic Foresight» held the Autumn School “Population and Health 2023”. More than 20 students, graduate students and young scientists took part in the school. Participants became familiar with approaches to measuring health, mortality data, measures of inequality and current studies, and gained practical experience in calculating various indicators in statistical software R.

Fedor Shvets came to Russia from Kazakhstan, graduated from the Bachelor’s programme in Sociology and Social Informatics at HSE University in St Petersburg, and is currently studying for his Master’s degree in Population and Development at HSE University in Moscow. In an interview with the HSE News Service, he spoke about his choice of university and programme, and shared his impressions of living and studying in Moscow.

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