The LSE Historical Economic Demography (HED) Group is an interdisciplinary network of researchers at LSE that explores changes in population, health, migration, living standards, human capital and social mobility over time. Group members work on a very wide range of topics covering the medieval period to the present and all continents. The following are a few research projects group members have been exploring in recent years:
- Measuring assortative mating (marriage) in England and Wales since the mid-eighteenth century to understand its effect on social mobility and the production of elite human capital (Cummins et al., 2023)
- Reconstructing child stunting rates (a proxy for malnutrition) around the world since the late nineteenth century to compare current HICs in the past with current LMICs and track progress over time (Schneider, Jaramillo-Echeverri, Purcell, et al., 2023)
- Exploring how wages for different household members affected marriage decisions and population growth in England since the Middle Ages (Horrell, Humphries, et al., 2020)
- Evaluating the economic impact of the 1918 flu pandemic in Spain in order to understand how COVID19 might affect economies today (Roses et al., 2021)
- Assessing how gender and marital status affected the location choices of Canadian migrants to the United States in the early twentieth century (Escamilla-Guerrero, Minns, et al. 2023)
Our People page lists all groups members along with their research interests, and you can read about a featured research project here.
The group was founded in 2023 building upon five years of annual historical economic demography workshops. Eric Schneider and Neil Cummins co-direct the group, which is sponsored by the Economic History Department.
The group hosts two workshops per year, which bring group members together with external researchers to explore historical economic demography. You can find details of future and past workshops on the Workshops page.
In addition to these workshops, the group hosts additional ad hoc workshops and events related to historical economic demography. Please see information on our Other Events page for the latest information.
Members of the group also actively teach historical economic demography topics at all levels in the school. You can find more information about studying Historical Economic Demography at LSE here.
The group is happy to host academic visitors through the Economic History Department.
For general queries about the group or about visiting, please contact Tracy Keefe at T.J.Keefe@lse.ac.uk in the first instance.