Individual-Level Mortality Predictions: Statistical Models vs. Machine Learning Study examined whether ML could improve individual-level lifespan predictions. www.demogr.mpg.de/go/ML-SM-LS Monica Alexander | Ugofilippo Basellini | Emilio Zagheni | Demography - the flagship journal of PAA

I'm really vibing with this collection of essays on the Future of Quantitative Social Science. It flat out has me buzzing. As Kevin Munger says in Chapter 14: "But AI will soon make it impossible for us to ignore the absurdity of the status quo..." rohanalexander.github.io/notes_on_the...

New in AusJPS: Lindsay Katz, Inessa De Angelis & Rohan Alexander analyse 535,961 statements in Australian parliamentary debates to examine gender, party and interruptions in the House of Representatives.

Do women politicians face more interruptions? An analysis of interjections in the Australian parliamentary debates (1998-2025)

Interruptions are a routine component of parliamentary debate, but also reveal underlying power dynamics and behavioural norms within political institutions. Using digitised Australian Hansard tran...

tandfonline.com

At PAA, @monjalexander.bsky.social and I taught a workshop on Applied Bayesian Modeling in Demography and Global Health. If anyone’s interested, all materials are here github.com/AlkemaLab/ba...

GitHub - AlkemaLab/bayesgoespaa2026

Contribute to AlkemaLab/bayesgoespaa2026 development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Lots of cool work from our group and friends being presented at #PAA2026, come say hi!

If you will be at #PAA2026 and would like a Formal Demography Working Group sticker, come and find me or @polizzan.bsky.social!

Join us next week for the final POP Speaker Series talk of the season featuring @jnobles.bsky.social ! She’ll present research on how wildfire exposure shapes prenatal scarring and selection. In person or on Zoom: utoronto.zoom.us/j/81954963223

Great presentation from Nik! Here's the link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-0L...

Formal Demography Working Group meeting 14

YouTube video by Formal Demography

youtube.com

Monica Alexander@monjalexander.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The Formal Demography Working Group is meeting tomorrow, April 23, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET)! Nik van der Wagt (UC Berkeley) will present work on "Population Momentum from Replacement Migration." Sign up for Zoom Link! formaldemography.github.io/working_group/

The Formal Demography Working Group is meeting tomorrow, April 23, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET)! Nik van der Wagt (UC Berkeley) will present work on "Population Momentum from Replacement Migration." Sign up for Zoom Link! formaldemography.github.io/working_group/

Join us tomorrow for the next POP Speaker Series event: our Student Symposium! Five U of T PhD students will be sharing their latest research and works in progress, come see what’s next in population research. In person or by zoom: utoronto.zoom.us/j/83352385599 utoronto.zoom.us/j/83352385599

Please join us in Toronto on the 29th!

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🚨 New AI Games round is live 🚨 Our first AI Games paper is now out at a top general interest journal (see preprint here: www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10... So… we’re launching the next stage 👇

Yesterday we had the chance to host Zhenchao Qian and hear about his fascinating research on interethnic and interracial marriage among Asian Americans. Thank you Professor Qian for an engaging talk as part of our POP Speaker Series! Join us April 21 for our next installment!

Many years ago I made a (very rough) 'D is for Demography' children's alphabet book: github.com/MJAlexander/... Now the awesome @zehang-richard-li.bsky.social has made a fabulous 'B is for Bayesian' book: github.com/richardli/b_... Check it out! Gotta indoctrinate the kids early!!

🚨 Program Change 🚨 We’re excited to welcome Zhenchao Qian (Brown University) for our next POP Speaker Series talk on April 7th. Mark your calendars! He will be discussing Interethnic and Interracial Marriage in Asian Americans In person or by zoom: utoronto.zoom.us/j/89252071524

New article w/ Lindsay Katz & @rohanalexander.bsky.social in @ausjpolsci.bsky.social! Analyzing Australian House of Reps debates, we find that as women’s representation increases, interruptions of women MPs & interruptions overall decline Read more: doi.org/10.1080/1036... #polsky #gendersky

Paper led by colleagues from Australian National University is out now in JAMANetworkOpen. We used novel mortality measure to quantify how female reproductive cancers affect female survival advantages over male across ages and cohorts among high-income countries. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam....

Female Reproductive Cancers and the Sex Gap in Survival

This cohort study quantifies differences in survival over time between males and females and examines how female reproductive cancers are associated with these differences.

jamanetwork.com

We're recruiting a new cohort of postdocs focusing on health disparities research for our NIH-funded T32. pophealth.wisc.edu/health-dispa... Interested candidates should feel free to reach out!

Yesterday we heard from Orsola Torrisi on the consequences of violent crime on sexual and reproductive health outcomes as part of our POP speaker series! We thank Orsola for the excellent talk and attendees for the great discussion! Join us April 7 for our next talk with @mdhayward.bsky.social!

My favorite line in a piece full of good lines

Leslie Root@lesja.bsky.social · 5mo ago

At last, my first "I'm on the left and I say pronatalism sucks" piece longer than a tweet is out spectrejournal.com/non-natalism/

At last, my first "I'm on the left and I say pronatalism sucks" piece longer than a tweet is out spectrejournal.com/non-natalism/

Non-natalism – Spectre Journal A case for being against pronatalism

Leslie Root shows how misguided it is for the left to accept pro-natalist positions. Worry about declining birth rates is based on a misinterpretation of the Total Fertility Rate, and minor social pol...

spectrejournal.com

Leslie Root@lesja.bsky.social · last yr.

"shouldn't the left be engaging with pronatalism" comes up constantly. yeah I'm engaging with it. engaging by saying it sucks!!

Last week, I mentioned this in passing in a workshop: In 1938 Enrico Fermi won a Nobel Prize for discovering two new elements of the periodic table. Lise Meitner shortly showed that Fermi was mistaken and instead had produced known lighter elements by fission. She did not win a Nobel prize.

Weaponizing Kinship: Four out of ten Colombians have lost a family member in the conflict 🇨🇴 Enrique Acosta, Diego Alburez, Maria Gargiulo, & Catalina Torres quantified how many Colombians have ever lost at least a family member to conflict-related violence. www.demogr.mpg.de/go/weaponkinship

Really excited about this one! Find the Zoom link via the QR code below if you'd like to join us remotely.

Toronto Population Network@tpn-uoft.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Very excited to share that our speaker series featuring Orsola Torrisi next week will be a hybrid event! Scan the QR code to join! Come March 10th at 11 am EST for Orsola's talk on The Consequences of Violent Crime on Sexual and Reproductive Health Outcomes. Link : utoronto.zoom.us/j/86168036725

Very excited to share that our speaker series featuring Orsola Torrisi next week will be a hybrid event! Scan the QR code to join! Come March 10th at 11 am EST for Orsola's talk on The Consequences of Violent Crime on Sexual and Reproductive Health Outcomes. Link : utoronto.zoom.us/j/86168036725

Two recent pre-prints: 1) "Same Prompt, Different Outcomes: Evaluating the Reproducibility of Data Analysis by LLMs" with Jiaxin (Allyson) Cui, arxiv.org/abs/2602.14349 2) "Benchmarking AI Performance on End-to-End Data Science Projects" with Evelyn Hughes, arxiv.org/abs/2602.14284 Comments welcome.

This was so great! Fabulous set of speakers

Toronto Population Network@tpn-uoft.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Yesterday we hosted our first hybrid event in the POP speaker series! A special thanks to @melissamilkie.bsky.social @kazumi-t.bsky.social Shari Eli and Martin Holmes for taking part in our UofT flash session! Get ready for our next event on March 10 featuring Orsola Torrisi

Next Tuesday 24 Feb the Toronto Population Network @tpn-uoft.bsky.social is hosting flash talks featuring population researchers from around the UofT campus! Please come along if you're in Toronto or join online!

Looking forward to having @kazumi-t.bsky.social at the upcoming UofT Flash Session! Join us on on February 24 for our next event in the TPN speaker series! Find out interesting research insights from several excellent speakers from across the University of Toronto.

Nice to see this one out!

Demography - the flagship journal of PAA@readdemography.bsky.social · 6mo ago

In “Limits of Predicting Individual-Level Longevity,” Badolato et al. assess a range of classic statistical & machine learning survival analysis models. @nickirons.bsky.social @monjalexander.bsky.social @ugobas.bsky.social @ezagheni.bsky.social @mpidr.bsky.social read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...

Continuing with our speakers for the upcoming UofT flash session we are happy to announce Melissa Milkie! Join us on on February 24 for our next event in the TPN speaker series! Find out interesting research insights from several excellent speakers from across the University of Toronto.