Koyel Sarkar
Postdoctoral Associate
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD Catholic University of Louvain (Demography); MPhil and MA Jawaharlal Nehru University (Population Studies); BSc Calcutta University (Geography).
Research Areas: Demography of India; couple formation; marriage; lowest-low fertility in developing states; ethnicity, education and women empowerment.
Koyel Sarkar is a social demographer with a background in geography. She uses various statistical tools and cartographic techniques over demographic datasets to address social research questions. Her academic interests focus on shifting socio-cultural norms pertaining to marriage and fertility in India. She is particularly interested in understanding the pathways to family formation, marriage-fertility linkage, socio-cultural underpinnings and changing gender equity in light of rapidly modernizing society in India and other developing countries.
Sarkar frequently presents her research work in various international conferences such as the Population Association of America, European Population Conference, and the International Union for Scientific Study of Population among others.
When not delving into demographic research, Koyel loves to play badminton.
Research
Koyel is currently exploring contemporary changes in the union-fertility nexus in India, the associated socio-cultural underpinnings and its diversity across geography. Her project proceeds through three research lines; the first line of research studies the spatial associations of lowest-low fertility and its socio economic determinants across Indian districts; the second line of research undertakes an epidemiological approach to analyze whether and how cultural background determines fertility decisions and labor force participation among women in India; and the third line of research studies exogamous marriages (inter-caste, inter-language and inter-religious) in India and their linkages with fertility.