Vegard Skirbekk

Biography

Vegard Skirbekk is the Project Director of the Age and Cohort Change (ACC) Project.

He was awarded a 1 million euro highly competitive "Starting Grant" from the European Research Council to set up his independent research project over a five year period in 2009. In 2010 he received another large project funding from PEW.

Dr. Skirbekk investigates trends in the age and gender distribution of human capital, skills and work performance focusing on life cycle and cohort changes; and how to improve senior workers' skills and capacities— an issue of paramount importance for many countries coping with challenges of an aging population. He also studies the impact of generational and life cycle variation on societal values and belief structures, considering cohort and life cycle changes, migration, fertility differences and taking into account intrafamilial transmissions. Another key research interest is the determinants of childbearing in a low fertility Asian/European context. He has published in leading academic journals, including Science, Demography, PNAS and Population and Development Review.

Dr. Skirbekk joined IIASA’s World Population (POP) Program in October 2003 as a Research Scholar. He graduated in economics from the University of Oslo, Norway in 2000, and also studied at Adelaide University, Australia. In 2005 he was awarded his PhD at the University of Rostock, Germany. In 2000-2001 Dr. Skirbekk participated in the Advanced Studies Program in International Economics, held by the Institute for World Economics in Kiel, Germany. From 2001 to 2003 he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany and is associated with the research department at Statistics Norway. He also served on the board of the Scientific Coordination Team of the PLUREL project (Peri-Urban Land Use Relationships Strategies and Sustainability Assessment Tools for Urban-Rural Linkages). He has worked at the Centre for Advanced Studies, Oslo/Norway; the Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm/Sweden; the Department of Demography, University of California at Berkeley/USA; the Department of Demography, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia/USA; as well as at the Population Research Institute, Nihon University, Tokyo/Japan.

Last update: 02 JAN 2014