ANU researcher wins 2011 United Nations Population Award

Thursday 10 March 2011

Professor Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, an ARC Future Fellow in the ANU's Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, has won the 2011 United Nations Population Award. Previous winners of the award include Bill and Melinda Gates in 2010 and, in earlier years, Presidents Mubarek and Soeharto and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In 2004, the Award went to Professor Jack Caldwell, also from the ANU. It is unusual for an academic to win this award so two awards to ANU academics in seven years is a considerable achievement.

Each year, the Committee for the United Nations Population Award presents an award to an individual(s) and/or institution(s) in recognition of outstanding contributions to increasing the awareness of population questions and to their solution. The Award, which was established by the General Assembly in November 1981, in resolution 36/201, and was first presented in 1983, consists of a gold medal, a diploma and a monetary prize.

As a demographer, Professor Abbasi-Shavazi has contributed to the understanding of the dynamics of fertility decline in Iran, demonstrating that improving the education and status of women, and particularly, facilitating their access to reproductive health services has facilitated the adoption of smaller family size ideals. He has also conducted research on the situation of Afghan refugees in Iran and his ARC Future Fellowship focuses upon the situations of Afghan refugees in various countries. Professor Abbasi-Shavazi obtained his PhD degree in demography from the Australian National University.

Professor Abbasi-Shavazi has played a major role in training and guiding a new generation of social scientists in Iran and has been instrumental in establishing and consolidating population institutions at the national and international level. In this capacity, he has served as member of numerous professional and advisory boards of prestigious population journals and professional associations. He was the leading figure in the creation of the Asian Population Association and is now its President.

Professor Abbasi-Shavazi has promoted the view that social, economic and cultural differences among countries are more important than religion as explanations of fertility differentials and he has been a bridge between the world’s most outstanding demographers and Iranian scholars and programme managers to study the rapid Iranian fertility decline. With his ANU colleagues, Professor Peter McDonald and Dr Meimanat Hosseini, Professor Abbasi-Shavazi won the 2010 World Prize for Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the Springer book: The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction.

The award will be presented to Professor Abbasi-Shavazi at an award ceremony to be held at the United Nations in New York on 16 June 2011.

UNFPA Press release
UN Population Award Laureates