Awards and Juries 2021

Prizewinner: Catalina TORRES

For her paper ‘Exploring the urban penalty in life expectancy during the health transition in Denmark, 1850–1910’

Catalina Torres completed her PhD in Health Sciences in 2020 from the University of Southern Denmark. Her dissertation focuses on the relationship between life expectancy and urbanization in historical populations. Catalina is a postdoctoral researcher at the French Museum of Natural History, where she is working on a project on the boom in twin births. This project is being conducted jointly with the French Institute for Demographic Studies, where Catalina is also a member of the operations team working on The Demography of COVID-19 Deaths database.

Abstract

In the context of Denmark’s rapid urban population growth during the 19th century amidst deficient sanitary conditions, this study explores the changes in the country’s life expectancy from 1850 to 1910, for both the total population and the urban and rural areas. It also examines the contributions by causes of death to the changes in life expectancy in Copenhagen. In the 1890s, a new mortality regime began to take shape, marking the passage from relatively slow gains in life expectancy and fluctuating mortality to rapid and sustained improvement, especially in cities. Until the 1880s, such gains were mainly driven by mortality reductions among children aged 1–4. From the 1890s, reductions in infant mortality contributed significantly to further gains. Mortality reductions from a few (mainly infectious) diseases were responsible for most of the gains observed in Copenhagen. Although declining, the urban–rural gap in life expectancy persisted throughout the period, particularly for men.

The international jury 2021

A Word from the Jury President

Since 2015, eligible researchers have been invited to submit original papers to compete for the Population Early-Career Researcher Prize. For the 2021 edition, the journal received 26 manuscripts by 31 authors—16 women and 15 men—with a master’s degree or PhD in diverse disciplines (demography, health sciences, sociology, history, economics, geography, statistics, etc.). This year’s contenders have a truly international profile, spanning the continents of Europe, America, Asia, and Africa, with three-quarters having studied in a country other than France. The submissions covered all regions of the world and addressed a wide range of topics in population studies, including health and mortality (10 papers), family and fertility (7), population dynamics (3), and migration (3).

After a first anonymized assessment, 13 manuscripts were preselected, each sent to two external reviewers specialized in the relevant field.  In parallel, members of the jury read all the texts (also anonymized) and the reviewers’ reports. This year’s winner was selected on 8 and 9 February 2021. The authors of several other interesting papers were invited to submit a revised version to the Editorial Board.

We are pleased to announce that the 2021 prize goes to Catalina Torres for her paper entitled ‘Exploring the urban penalty in life expectancy during the health transition in Denmark, 1850–1910’. Adopting a classic historical demographic approach, Torres examines a pivotal period in the European health transition characterized by much higher mortality in urban than in rural areas. Using data on mortality in Denmark and causes of death in Copenhagen, she describes the spectacular increase in urban life expectancy during the late 19th century.

We hope you enjoy reading this article, and we look forward to receiving submissions for the 2022 edition.

International jury of the 2021 competition

President: Gustavo De Santis (University of Florence, Italy)

Members:
Damien Bricard (IRDES, France)
Géraldine Duthé (INED, France)
Stéphane Helleringer (NYU, Abu Dhabi)
Dominique Tabutin (UCLouvain, Belgium)

Non-voting members:

Olivia Samuel (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, France)

Anne Solaz (INED, France)