Luuk Frowijn wins the 2023 NIDI-NVD Thesis Award!

On Monday, December 4, during the conclusion of the Demography Day, the NIDI-NVD Master Thesis Award 2023 was presented to Luuk Frowijnfor his master's thesis titled “Fertility mosaic: Explaining fertility differences between Dutch municipalities". This award is given for the best master's thesis in the field of interdisciplinary research on population issues. Luuk Frowijn wrote his thesis at the University of Groningen as a student of the Master Population Studies. His supervisor was Professor Dr. Clara Mulder.

The jury wrote the following about his thesis: Since the 1970s, fertility in the Netherlands has dropped well below the replacement level, and in 2022 natural population growth has ceased. The societal relevance of this study is evident from the fact that this development is part of the current migration debate. The results of this study can also help to improve population forecasts at a lower scale level.

Luuk’s Thesis analyses a typical demographic question and Luuk was the only student who did so at a higher level: the municipality. Different explaining factors were derived from a clear theoretical framework: demographic, cultural, socio-economic and contextual factors. We particularly liked the path-dependency argumentation, which also showed in the results. The thesis used strong visuals to support the argumentation. For example, to show how outliers in tiny municipalities may skew the results if you don ot correct for these, and numerous maps of the Netherlands to show geographical patterns.

English
Nederlands English