Jakub Bijak featured in first episode of FutuRes “Certain Futures” podcast

CPC-CG member Professor Jakub Bijak was interviewed for the first episode of Certain Futures, a new podcast produced by Radio Spaetkauf in collaboration with the EU-funded FutuRes Project.

Titled 'Nine Months Per Year', the episode introduces host Daniel Stern to demographic research through conversations with researchers working on ageing and population change in Europe. Professor Bijak explains the historical development of demography, beginning with 17th-century mortality tables, and describes its application to areas including life expectancy, pensions, and insurance.

Professor Bijak outlines how demography has moved from static population snapshots to models that follow individuals across the life course. He notes that while migration can support labour markets in the short term, it cannot offset the structural effects of ageing driven primarily by fertility decline. The number of migrants required to reverse ageing trends would be too high for this to be a long-term solution.

He also discusses the difficulty of defining and measuring migration. Migration data, he explains, has high levels of uncertainty, and its classification often reflects political context. Professor Bijak uses the example of Europe’s historical focus on emigration and the later shift to concern with immigration to illustrate how measurement priorities have changed.

In the episode, Bijak refers to his open access publication 'Towards Bayesian Model-Based Demography' and highlights the growing recognition within migration research that there are no single drivers of mobility. Decisions to migrate, he explains, are influenced by multiple factors that operate together.

He concludes by describing how demographic research can track people through time rather than viewing age groups as separate populations. In this perspective, population ageing is understood as the same individuals moving through different stages of life.



The podcast is part of the FutuRes Project, of which Professor Bijak is a part. The project brings together demographers, economists and policymakers working on ageing and resilience in Europe. Subscribe to future episodes on the Certain Futures site.

Posted 05/09/2025 08:38