Ron Lesthaeghe
Free University of Brussels
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Primary Section: 53, Social and Political Sciences Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2014)
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Biosketch
Ron Lesthaeghe is emeritus professor of demography and social science research methods at the Free University of Brussels (VUB). Lesthaeghe is a sociologist and demographer, and most known for his work on the fertility transitions in Europe, the demography of Sub-Sahara African marriage and fertility patterns, the Muslim minorities in Europe, more formal demographic modelling of fertility postponement and recuperation, and most recently for his theoretical and empirical work on the “Second Demographic Transition” in Europe, the US and Latin America. He is born in Ostend, Belgium (1945), graduated from the State University of Ghent (Belgium) and Brown University, and was a member of the “European fertility Project” at Princeton. He is a member of the Royal Academy in Brussels and foreign member of the Dutch Academy and the American Philosophical Society. He has also been a visiting professor in the US at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the University of California at Irvine. He won the Irene Taueber Awards of Social Demography (US), the quinquennial John-Ernest Solvay Award in Social Sciences and Humanities (Belgium), and the Life Time Award of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP).
Research Interests
Worldwide demographic changes ("Second Demographic Transition), life course analysis, cultural change (esp. values orientations), family policies and social security.
