Keynote speech

Geoff Childs

Professor, Washington University in St. Louis

Overpopulation, Depopulation, Repopulation, or What? Past and Future Demographic Prospects in Highland Nepal

This talk is partly retrospective; a reflection on the state of population studies during the 1990s when I started conducting research in Nepal’s Nubri Valley. Those were the waning days of concern over a ‘population bomb’ when high fertility was entrenched as the driving academic and policy issue. In the ensuing decades, and through collaboration with colleagues across disciplines, we have been able to chart the uptake of contraception, a demographic transition from high to low fertility, and population decline as highland residents migrate elsewhere in Nepal and abroad. The main part of the talk will focus on current research projects that seek to document outmigration and its impact on aging and care for the elderly, and the backfilling of some highland regions with in-migrants from lower regions. The objectives are to highlight contemporary population issues, discuss some emerging implications, and suggest ways that future research can benefit from knowledge of current and projected demographic trends.

About the Speaker 

Geoff Childs, Professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, studies social, cultural, and demographic dimensions of fertility, mortality, migration, and aging in highland communities of Asia. Side interests include historical demography, and collaborative research with human biologists studying high altitude’s effects on fertility, mother’s milk, and childhood development. He is the author of Tibetan Diary: From Birth to Death and Beyond in a Himalayan Valley of Nepal (2004, University of California Press), Tibetan Transitions: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Fertility, Family Planning, and Demographic Change (2008, Brill), and From a Trickle to a Torrent: Education, Migration, and Social Change in a Himalayan Valley of Nepal co-authored with Namgyal Choedup (2019, University of California Press). His current research, funded by the National Science Foundation and in partnership with Sienna Craig, centers on aging, place, and care in an age of migration. Geoff is a former President of the ANHS (2010-2012).