Gordon De Jong - 2020 IUSSP Laureate

The IUSSP Council has selected Gordon De Jong to be its 30th Laureate in recognition of  his groundbreaking work on migration, including migration theory and his service to the training of demographers from all over the world in a career spanning nearly half a century.  As one Council member noted in explaining his vote, Gordon De Jong’s "1981 work on migration decision-making is especially noteworthy and is still extensively cited. It was essentially the first attempt to unite the wide range of economic and non-economic explanations for migration decision-making into a single work. By extension, this theory has been useful in integrating micro-economic principle for human behavior in general to cultural and psychological explanations and motives.”

Gordon De Jong’s greatest contribution was his vision to create a unique interdisciplinary (dual-degree) training program in Demography at Penn State that is one of the top centers for demographic training in the US. 

The IUSSP Council will honor Gordon De Jong at a ceremony that will take place during the Population Association of America’s Annual meeting in Washington, D.C.  The date and time of the ceremony will be announced later.

Read the nomination letter.