Luis Rosero-Bixby

Biosketch

Luis Rosero-Bixby is a Latin American demographer, retired professor of the University of Costa Rica, School of Statistics and Institute of Health Research (INISA), and founder and director of the Central American Population Studies Center in this university. Currently he is visiting research associate at the Department of Demography of the University of California, Berkeley. Rosero-Bixby was born and grew up in Quito, Ecuador, where obtained a degree in economics from the Pontifical Catholic University. In Costa Rica obtained a two-year diploma in formal demography from the Latin American Demography Center (CELADE). He received a master in public health and a Ph.D. in Population Planning from the University of Michigan. In addition of serving as faculty at the University of Costa Rica since 1977, he was Research Associate of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University (1993-97), Bernard Berelson Fellow at the Population Council in New York City (2000-1), visiting professor in several universities, and Prometeo Researcher of the Government of Ecuador (2011-12). Rosero-Bixby is founder member of the Costa Rican Academy of Sciences (1994-), he also was Wellcome Trust fellow (2004-9), and he received the “Outstanding Scientist 2008” award from the Ministry of Science of Costa Rica and the “2009 researcher of the year” award from the University of Costa Rica.

Research Interests

His research interest is Latin American demography. He has studied the fertility transition in the region as an innovation-diffusion process, the recent increase of childlessness among younger generations, the trends in marital and living arrangements, and the fertility of international migrants. Rosero-Bixby has also published numerous internationally known articles on the determinants of the high life expectancy of Costa Rica, particularly the mortality breakthrough that took place in this country in the 1970s and the extraordinary longevity of the elderly in the region of Nicoya. More recently, his research has focused on aging, including the health and wellbeing of elderly people and the consequences of population ageing. He has also studied the relationship between population and deforestation and the access of population to health services using geographic information systems.