Op maandag 4 december is tijdens de afsluiting van de Demografiedag de NIDI-NVD Master Thesis Award 2023 uitgereikt aan Luuk Frowijn, voor zijn Masterscriptie getiteld “Fertility mosaic: Explaining fertility differences between Dutch municipalities”. Deze prijs wordt uitgereikt voor de beste Masterscriptie op het terrein van het interdisciplinaire onderzoek naar bevolkingsvraagstukken. Luuk Frowijn heeft zijn scriptie geschreven aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen als student van de Master Population Studies. Zijn begeleider was prof. dr. Clara Mulder.
De jury schreef het volgende over zijn scriptie: 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.