Elizabeth Thomson

Ph.D., sociology, University of Washington USA, 1979); Professor of Demography Emerita, Stockholm University; Professor of Sociology Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Former director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Demography and Ecology (1999-2004), the Stockholm University Demography Unit (2004-2013), and the Linnaeus Center for Social Policy and Family Dynamics in Europe, Stockholm University (2008-2019)

Professor Thomson has conducted research on couple childbearing decisions, family structure and child well-being, sterilization, stepfamily childbearing and adolescent sexuality. In recent years, much of her research has focused on comparative European family demography, including the relationship between education and the family life course in Europe, family structure and child well-being in Sweden, and the implications of union instability for fertility. Current projects include studies of childbearing with more than one partner, and the early "take-off" of childbearing in cohabitation. She has held numerous grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Swedish Research Council, and other Swedish funding agencies, and is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.