Senior Fellow

Hans-Peter Kohler, PhD

  • Frederick J. Warren Professor of Demography, School of Arts and Sciences

Hans-Peter Kohler, PhD is the Frederick J. Warren Professor of Demography in the Department of Sociology and Co-Director of the Population Aging Research Center (PARC) at the University of Pennsylvania. Kohler’s primary research focuses on fertility and health in developing and developed countries. A key characteristic of this research is the attempt to integrate demographic, economic, sociological, and biological approaches in empirical and theoretical models of demographic behavior. For example, Kohler has been investigating the bio-social determinants of fertility, the causes of low- and lowest-low fertility in Southern and Eastern Europe, the causal effects of education on health, the interrelations between marriage and sexual relations in developing countries, and more.

Kohler is the recipient of the 2005 Clifford C. Clogg Award for Early Career Achievement by the Population Association of America, and has been a recent fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Science. His research has received extensive funding through the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. He is the author of a book on fertility and social interaction, and he has co-edited books on the biodemography of human reproduction and fertility and on causal inferences in population studies. Kohler has widely published on topics related to fertility, health, social, and sexual networks, HIV/AIDS, biodemography, and well-being in leading scientific journals, and his work has had substantial influence on policy and media discussions related to demographic change. He has extensive experience in the design and implementation of large-scale data collection in sub-Saharan contexts, and directs the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH) that documents more than two decades of demographic, socioeconomic, and health conditions in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Kohler received his MA in Demography (1994) and his PhD in Economics (1997) from the University of California at Berkeley.

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