Chair of Sociology/Social Inequality and Gender with the Marie Jahoda Visiting Professor Programme in International Gender Studies

Venue: Ruhr-University Bochum
Time: 18-20 April 2018
Abstract Submission: 15 September 2017

Women have been the subject of demographic research and politics for the last 200 years. Based on the unquestioned assumption of procreation as a ’natural fact,‘ women became the primary objects of study of demography as well as – involuntarily – causal agents of demographic imbalances. Their ‚fertility behaviour‘ further became the main indicator for demographic developments. Not only does this limited perspective contribute to the naturalisation of the gender order, it also implies that women’s emancipation is the cause of low reproduction rates in Western nation states. At the same time, under the surface, not all women are addressed in the same way in demography. Instead, such ‚interpellations‘ are structured by race, class, ability and age.

Against this backdrop, the workshop aims to widen and strengthen the discussion about demography, gender order and public policy by developing new approaches and explanations informed by gender and intersectional perspectives as well as critically examine the epistemological and methodological foundations of current demography. Another aim is to … read more (PDF)