Researcher in economic history, demography and geography

Lund University, LUSEM, Department of Economic History

Lund University was founded in 1666 and is repeatedly ranked among the world’s top universities. The University has around 47 000 students and more than 8 800 staff based in Lund, Helsingborg and Malmö. We are united in our efforts to understand, explain and improve our world and the human condition.

Lund University welcomes applicants with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We regard gender equality and diversity as a strength and an asset.

Lund University School of Economics and Management is one of eight faculties within Lund University. More than 4 000 students and 450 researchers, teachers and other staff are engaged here in training and research in economic history, business administration, business law, informatics, economics, statistics and research policy.

Lund University School of Economics and Management is accredited by the three largest and most influential accreditation institutes for business schools: EQUIS, AMBA and AACSB. Only just over 100 business schools in the world have achieved this prestigious Triple Crown accreditation.

Type of employment: Limit of tenure, two years.

Extent: 100 % Location: Department of Economic History, Lund First day of employment: June 1, 2020 or by appointment.

Subject area

Economic History, Demography and Geography

Specific subject description

Historical Demography, Historical Geography, and Economic History

Job assignments

The holder will work in two research programs. The first program is The Landskrona Population Study. Here, the holder will work with aspects related to GIS and demographic analyses of longitudinal individual-level data, as well as geocoding of such longitudinal data, during the period 1900-2010. The program is based on geocoded socioeconomic and demographic micro data, with information on various demographic outcomes, occupation and income for about 350,000 unique individuals in the city of Landskrona and surrounding rural areas (The Scanian Economic-Demographic Database, SEDD). Specific work tasks relates to geocoding, digitizing historical maps, linking individual-level data from population registers to digital maps, and estimating geographic variables.

The second program is Technological shocks and regional resilience: changing occupational structure and development in the Swedish regions (1640–1900). Here, the holder will work with aspects related to GIS and economic geography. The program aims to develop new methodologies to process non-standardized historical micro-level information. Specific work tasks relates to using GIS to construct a database on occupational structure for Swedish parishes (1640-1900) and to estimate preindustrial occupational structures within these parishes.

Work tasks common for both research programs involve empirical analyses of different demographic, geographic and economic processes (health and mortality, gender and family, socioeconomic stratification and mobility), including data management, statistical analysis (spatial and non-spatial), and writing academic papers for publication, independently and in collaboration with other members of the research team. The researcher should be willing to interact with students and to participate actively in the common activities at the Centre for Economic Demography and the Department of Economic History.

Eligibility

To be qualified for employment as researcher, an individual must hold a PhD in a field related to Economic Demography with a focus on GIS or related discipline (e.g. Economics, Sociology, Economic Geography, Economic History, History).

Basis of Assessment

Scholarly proficiency is the main requirement for employment.

The holder of the position should be competent and experienced enough to be able to carry out independent research, using state-of-the-art econometric and spatial models. Experience in working with longitudinal individual-level economic and demographic data from population registers and of geocoding of individual level population data using historical maps are both requirements for the position.

Experience in working with the SEDD and proficiency in using of STATA, SQL Server and ArcGIS are considered valuable merits. Documented skills in quantitative analysis and data management are also valuable merits.

For appointment, the candidate must have demonstrated a high degree of research expertise as manifested in the quality of the PhD dissertation and other publications.

In addition to the above, the following set of criteria will be applied in the assessment of candidates:

international experience;
other results and distinctions which attest to the applicant's ability to do research;
ability to engage and inform society at large about research.