Final Report Summary - COHORT (The demography of skills and beliefs in Europe with a focus on cohort change)
Stand alone description of the project and its outcomes
The unifying element in the research conducted by the Age and Cohort Change Project (ACC) is how global cohort based assessments can improve our understanding of population dynamics, to build better projection models and to improve one’s capacity to foresee and hence be able to develop more targeted policies that relate to demographically changing societies. The project has focused on studying cognition and other functional measures associated with productivity, religion and beliefs and associated determinants from a multidisciplinary perspective.
While earlier work typically used chronological age distributions to describe trends over time and variation between countries in how "old" they are, our research as shown that how old a population effectively is should be based on objective measures such as cognitive and physical functioning levels rather than chronological measures. Accordingly, countries can be young even if they are demographically old based on functional measures rather than chronological age structures (Skirbekk et al. 2012, Skirbekk 2002). From considering productivity as an output variable, a key contribution of our research has been to highlight the role of changing importance of productivity determinants following technological and societal change (including which skills, health dimensions, and abilities that matter more in the labour market) (Schneeweis et al. 2014, Romeu-Gordo and Skirbekk 2013). Our research has significantly contributed to changing the perception of demographic variation in productivity from a fixed to a more modifiable entity greatly influenced by national policies and individual level behavioral choice.
The project was the first to collect data on religion on a global scale which included detailed national data on fertility, age and migration – and to carry out global projections based on these data. This work was published in collaboration with PEW, who we collaborated with for many years (PEW 2015). We carried out global projections of religion for most (199) countries in the world. The project has shown that “soft factors”, such as values and religion, become increasingly important in determining demographic behavior, also when socioeconomic factors are accounted for (Skirbekk et al. 2015, Skirbekk et al. 2010, Stonawski et al. 2015a and 2015b).
References
PEW/ACC (2015)"The Future of World Religions". Washington D.C.
Romeu-Gordo, L.; Skirbekk, V. (2013). "Skill demand and the comparative advantage of age: Jobs tasks and earnings from the 1980s to the 2000s in Germany" (PDF). Labour Economics 22: 61–69.
Skirbekk, V. (2002). Age and Individual Productivity. Research Note. Austria.
Skirbekk, V.; Goujon, A.; Kaufmann, E. (2010). "Secularism, Fundamentalism, or Catholicism? The religious composition of the United States to 2043". JSSR 49 (2): 293–310.
Skirbekk, V.; Loichinger, E.; Weber, D. (2012). "Variation in cognitive functioning as a refined approach to comparing ageing across countries". PNAS 109 (3): 770–774.
Skirbekk, V., et al. (2015). "Is Buddhism the low fertility religion of Asia?."Demographic Research 32 (2015): 1-28.
Schneeweis, Nicole, Vegard Skirbekk, and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer. "Does education improve cognitive performance four decades after school completion?." Demography 51.2 (2014): 619-643.
Stonawski, M., et al. (2015) "Fertility Patterns of Native and Migrant Muslims in Europe." Population, Space and Place (2015).
Stonawski, M., et al. (2015) "The End of Secularisation through Demography? Projections of Spanish Religiosity." Journal of Contemporary Religion 30.1 (2015): 1-21.
The unifying element in the research conducted by the Age and Cohort Change Project (ACC) is how global cohort based assessments can improve our understanding of population dynamics, to build better projection models and to improve one’s capacity to foresee and hence be able to develop more targeted policies that relate to demographically changing societies. The project has focused on studying cognition and other functional measures associated with productivity, religion and beliefs and associated determinants from a multidisciplinary perspective.
While earlier work typically used chronological age distributions to describe trends over time and variation between countries in how "old" they are, our research as shown that how old a population effectively is should be based on objective measures such as cognitive and physical functioning levels rather than chronological measures. Accordingly, countries can be young even if they are demographically old based on functional measures rather than chronological age structures (Skirbekk et al. 2012, Skirbekk 2002). From considering productivity as an output variable, a key contribution of our research has been to highlight the role of changing importance of productivity determinants following technological and societal change (including which skills, health dimensions, and abilities that matter more in the labour market) (Schneeweis et al. 2014, Romeu-Gordo and Skirbekk 2013). Our research has significantly contributed to changing the perception of demographic variation in productivity from a fixed to a more modifiable entity greatly influenced by national policies and individual level behavioral choice.
The project was the first to collect data on religion on a global scale which included detailed national data on fertility, age and migration – and to carry out global projections based on these data. This work was published in collaboration with PEW, who we collaborated with for many years (PEW 2015). We carried out global projections of religion for most (199) countries in the world. The project has shown that “soft factors”, such as values and religion, become increasingly important in determining demographic behavior, also when socioeconomic factors are accounted for (Skirbekk et al. 2015, Skirbekk et al. 2010, Stonawski et al. 2015a and 2015b).
References
PEW/ACC (2015)"The Future of World Religions". Washington D.C.
Romeu-Gordo, L.; Skirbekk, V. (2013). "Skill demand and the comparative advantage of age: Jobs tasks and earnings from the 1980s to the 2000s in Germany" (PDF). Labour Economics 22: 61–69.
Skirbekk, V. (2002). Age and Individual Productivity. Research Note. Austria.
Skirbekk, V.; Goujon, A.; Kaufmann, E. (2010). "Secularism, Fundamentalism, or Catholicism? The religious composition of the United States to 2043". JSSR 49 (2): 293–310.
Skirbekk, V.; Loichinger, E.; Weber, D. (2012). "Variation in cognitive functioning as a refined approach to comparing ageing across countries". PNAS 109 (3): 770–774.
Skirbekk, V., et al. (2015). "Is Buddhism the low fertility religion of Asia?."Demographic Research 32 (2015): 1-28.
Schneeweis, Nicole, Vegard Skirbekk, and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer. "Does education improve cognitive performance four decades after school completion?." Demography 51.2 (2014): 619-643.
Stonawski, M., et al. (2015) "Fertility Patterns of Native and Migrant Muslims in Europe." Population, Space and Place (2015).
Stonawski, M., et al. (2015) "The End of Secularisation through Demography? Projections of Spanish Religiosity." Journal of Contemporary Religion 30.1 (2015): 1-21.