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Reposted by Ian Timaeus

LSHTM Alumni @lshtmalumni.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

What if Ale could reduce the inequalities in healthcare access? Alejandra Parra (MSc Demography & Health, 2025) reflects on her @lshtm.bsky.social journey, her passion for demography, and her next steps towards a funded PhD. Read more: www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/studen...

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

So being lashed to a ship's mast while sexy women sing unbearably erotic songs to you isn't of any interest then? (Asking for a friend).

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

No, they get opened by some junior minister (higher education or public health, usually) who arrives late and drones on for 40 minutes about nothing very much. And yet some of you wonder why professors hate politicians.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Take away Becker's assumption of fixed tastes and you are left swimming in overdetermined gray glop trying to make sense of the real world, while your AI runs up and down the shoreline yapping in a panic.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

But that distance can become huge to someone on a sailing boat out in the North Atlantic or to, say, a medieval pilgrim heading for Jerusalem.

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Reposted by Ian Timaeus

Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Excellent review essay of three books on demography - After the Spike and No One Left, which promote “underpopulation” panic; and Toxic Demography, which describes the political mobilisation of demography represented in the first two books doi.org/10.1111/padr...

doi.org

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Useful resource for anyone who would like to learn about demographic methods using interactive materials rather than a traditional textbook: www.linkedin.com/pulse/open-a... We put a lot of work into these modules a few years ago, so thank you LSHTM for taking on hosting them.

linkedin.com

Open access training materials in Demographic Methods and Population Analysis

The Population Studies Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, U. of London published a self-study course Introduction to Demographic Methods and Population Analysis for students ...

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

No! Please don't discuss pandas being inseminated in any way except by other pandas. You might set off some really unwelcome chains of thought in the minds of the pronatalist bros.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

The ever-expanding Corporate Communications team mostly will be.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

The illustrations are better too!

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Hypothesis? They dredged some observational data and speculate about mechanisms based on old research that did observe (!) owners' behaviour as well as cats'. Old git ethologists have found that, rather than having a placatory effect, chatting back often provokes further attempts at interaction :)

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Yup, my (male) cat is the worst nag I know.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

I'm only a confused squirrel so the distinction between silly nonsense such as destroying money and responsible fiscal management such as reducing the money supply is a little esoteric for me. I do wonder whether, with your forthright debating style, you might feel more at home on the bird site.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

I did do econ 101 in 1973. You tell us "If anyone cares, after 2007 I often suggested the UK should indulge in some money-financed expenditure". So you believe that government should sometimes make its own clams but it can't/doesn't/shouldn't ever destroy them? That seems like silly nonsense to me.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

I was taught in econ 101 that money is a store of government guaranteed value that is used as a medium of exchange and so circulates. They left out the bit about it also being a bunch of IOUs written and sold by banks knowing that government will take and burn them to stop the economy overheating.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Paul Murphy clearly exasperates you (or did in 2019) and the Right lacks a monopoly abusing economic theory. But I read MMT as building in Godley's identity. It clarifies that macro policy must consider real resources, whereas all forms of monetarism just end up helping private finance grab the lot.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Your article says it: that it's about doctors, schools and consumer goods. So does MMT. For those of us who aren't professional economists, that's the key point. How does one discuss policy sensibly with every politician claiming (mostly believing) that the constraint on a national economy is money?

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Yeah, I told them I had better things to do with my time.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

I favour an Augustinian approach to producing code: O Lord, make me stop assuming Boolean FALSE is 0, but not yet.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Previously, the UN used each country’s own definitions of which areas were urban. That approach tells us that only 58% of the global population was urban in 2025. In contrast, the new 81% statistic is based on a universal definition of urban areas as relatively dense settlements of 5000+ people.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

These are the first global urbanization statistics since the UN Population Division stopped revising them biennially in 1918. The estimates have changed a lot! They suggest that 81% of the world’s population now live in towns and cities, compared to the 2018 estimate of just 55%. What is going on?

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

There is an online course available on the IUSSP website that covers intermediate as well as introductory formal demography papp.iussp.org. It could do with an update to cover developments in the last decade, though arguably most of them are advanced and build on what's there.

papp.iussp.org

PAPP - Population Analysis for Policies & Programmes

Module Overview | Acknowledgements | How to reference

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Reposted by Ian Timaeus

Population Studies Group, LSHTM @psglshtm.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Tomorrow @farid-flici.bsky.social will talk about population ageing and social security sustainability in Algeria. Join us! 👇

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

Demography may be unique in needing the insights of both those who think involution is about the history of rice cultivation in Java and those who think it's f(f(x))=x.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

Ironically, you couldn't be more wrong! A number of East Europeans who trained as rocket scientists before the collapse of the rocket-science job market instead became first-rate demographers. I would mention, in particular, Vladimir Shkolnikov, who was educated at the Moscow Aerospace Institute.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

There's lots for all demographers (OK, a few of you probably know it all already) to ponder on in this paper. #demography

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

What is Michaelangelo's David good for? Sierra llama is a beautiful equation. Sure, it has applications, but the world needs more beauty. And the generalization to variable growth rates - it sends shivers down the spine. A profound account of population dynamics encapsulated in a single equation.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

My apologies. It was after midnight when I posted (obviously) and I was evidently too tired to be doing so. I just want to reassure you that it's not at all the case that anyone in Europe has somehow developed the crazy notion that nobody American bothers to read our offerings anyway.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is a llama (4 for me).

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Also in the Emergency Room I discovered on Sunday night, though it might rather spoil things if you yourself happened to be the emergency.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Got it in 3 - I knew that bioanth minor would come in useful one day.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Doesn't help. The Noisy People's needs trump that.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Best to quickly shuffle out of your crease, plant your front foot, and drive that issue past mid-off for six. Or is that a particularly English academic thing?

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

It is a lovely piece, but a cricket ball is hard and heavy and can come flying at the batsman at over 90mph in the first-class game. You have to grasp what it takes to face that to appreciate the drama of the duels fought on that large green lawn.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

I only got ten but it's not about being one of the cool kids at school is it, so that's fine, really it is, just fine.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

My parents fled the eastern hemisphere when I was six but we lived in the borderlands to the south of London and there were even a few "Ossis" at my secondary school, though we mostly treated them the same as normal children.

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Reposted by Ian Timaeus

IPUMS @ipums.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Users of the Demographic and Health Surveys, please take the United Nations Statistics Division DHS impact survey (form.jotform.com/250913880478...) regarding recent cuts. Replies inform future planning and advocacy. All responses are confidential and presented only in aggregate.

form.jotform.com

Questionnaire on the use of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data

Please click the link to complete this form.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

That's tealighting. I may have to rink you.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

OK, but it's scenarios that need an ISO standard. Somebody really ought to do something about scenarios.

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Reposted by Ian Timaeus

Bruno Masquelier @brunomasquelier.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Our study estimates excess deaths in children and parental loss due to the war in Gaza in 2023. From Oct 8 to Dec 31, 2023, 8120 children <18 were killed due to the conflict, 15127 children lost a father, and 9886 children lost a mother -in 3 months pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com

A demographic assessment of the impact of the war in the Gaza Strip on the mortality of children and their parents in 2023 - Population Health Metrics

Background Following Hamas’s 7 October attack, Israel launched extensive aerial bombardments in the Gaza Strip, followed by a large-scale ground invasion. During the first 3 months of the conflict, up...

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Reposted by Ian Timaeus

Population Studies Group, LSHTM @psglshtm.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

📢 Funding opportunity 📢 We’re accepting applications for the Basia Zaba Scholarship for the MSc in Demography & Health @lshtm.bsky.social 🎓 The scholarship covers full tuition fees for a UK home student for the 2025-26 academic year. Deadline 26 March. For more information 👉 tinyurl.com/3j7esk22

tinyurl.com

Basia Zaba Memorial Scholarship | LSHTM

This scholarship is for the MSc Demography & Health. Professor Basia Zaba (1949-2018) Basia started her long association with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in 1975 when she

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

The Population Studies Group at LSHTM now has a Bluesky account! Feel free to follow us at Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/psgl... #demography #population #populationstudies #lshtm

bsky.app

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Perhaps he might lose interest in Greenland if they were to try wearing sombreros whenever the foreign TV crews show up.

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