The candidate will write a PhD dissertation based on a set of research articles publishable in international refereed journals. He/she will participate in meetings of the NIDI Theme Group Families & Generations, and other relevant research groups. He/she will be supervised by prof. dr. Anne H. Gauthier (NIDI-RUG), dr. Gert Stulp (RUG) and prof. dr. Antal van den Bosch (Meertens). 

The PhD project will be part of the newly funded project “Using machine learning to improve the measurement of the European fertility gap”. The overall aims of the project are to bring a new multidisciplinary tool to demographic research, and to improve the conventional survey approach to the measurement of demographic behavior. Specifically, the objective is to use natural language processing and machine learning techniques to code and classify answers to open-ended questions on fertility intentions in a large demographic survey. 

 

For this position, we are looking for candidates with:

1. A strong quantitative background in social sciences, humanities or data science
2. Demonstrated research experience (e.g. Research master and published article(s) or presentation(s) at academic conferences)
3. Experience and affinity with advanced statistical or computational methods for the analysis of large datasets (e. g. survey or register data, or big data) 
4. Excellent knowledge of English and Dutch (essential)
5. Excellent writing and social skills 
6. Knowledge of family demography or family sociology (this is an asset but it is not required).
    

The candidate is expected to start in September 2020. The initial appointment will be for a period of 1 year. After positive evaluation, the appointment will be extended for another 3 years. A psychological assessment may be part of the selection procedure. 

The gross monthly salary will be between € 2,325 (year 1) and € 2,972 (year 4). Benefits include pension contribution, annual holiday premium of 8% and an end-of-year premium of 8.3%. Non-Dutch nationals may be eligible for a substantial tax break (30% ruling). 
 

Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)

The Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI-KNAW) is an Academy research institute. NIDI conducts research on population issues and informs policymakers and society about the results of demographic research. By concentrating researchers from different disciplines in a single institute, NIDI has become one of the most important demographic research centres in Europe.