Population, Poverty and Inequality

The IUSSP Scientific Panel on Population, Poverty and Inequality will oversee an IUSSP project to produce policy-relevant evidence on the interaction of population dynamics with poverty and inequality. With funding provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the panel will host two international conferences that address the central theme of the Panel.  We also plan to follow up the conferences with sessions and other events at the 2021 International Population Conference. 

The Panel aims to become the knowledge hub for economic demography research that examines the interactions of population dynamics with poverty and inequality. It will host two conferences with an open call for papers, and open invitation, for economists, demographers, and economic demographers to share their research relating to the Panel’s themes. 

In examining the interaction of population with poverty and inequality, the Panel is interested in the causal impact in both directions: poverty and inequality impacting population dynamics, and population dynamics affecting poverty and an inequality. The Panel is particularly interested in low- and middle-income settings. Consideration of population dynamics addresses issues of gender, fertility, reproductive health, age structure, aging, household structure and migration. The Panel is interested in how these population dynamics interact with poverty and inequality, moving beyond the analysis of prevalence of poverty and inequality to probe differential impacts of socio-economic status across the distribution on demographic behavior as well as the consequences of demographic changes for well-being across the distribution. 

In addition to the two international conferences organized by the Panel, the members will promote the IUSSP Population, Poverty and Inequality Panel at other conferences and dissemination efforts for topics that inform the themes of the Panel. For example, researchers can apply for travel awards to other conferences for topics relating to the Panel themes.