Xavier St-Denis
@xavierst-denis.bsky.social
Associate Professor at Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) in Montréal. Sociologist and demographer researching social inequality and mobility, education, careers, families, social policy, administrative data, and other obsessions...
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
I've found one of the hardest thinking habits to cultivate is the distinction between "everything is ideological" and "everything is bullshit"
Statistics are always ideological, in the sense that they call attention to certain features of the world and not others, present some facts as neutral and others as political choices. But there's still a consistent procedure. If the content is just made up, they stop being statistics at all.
August 13, 2025 at 7:27 PM
I've found one of the hardest thinking habits to cultivate is the distinction between "everything is ideological" and "everything is bullshit"
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Starting a thread about the books I’ve read in 2025, focusing on novels
Feel free to comment with recommendations on what to read next!
#books #booksky
Feel free to comment with recommendations on what to read next!
#books #booksky
a cartoon of a wizard holding a wand and a purple pot
ALT: a cartoon of a wizard holding a wand and a purple pot
media.tenor.com
January 3, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Here's how I understand eugenics, as a demographer who studies reproduction: Eugenics is the idea that science can tell us two things: (1) which population(s) are best and (2) how to manipulate birth, migration, and death to achieve a desirable population.
August 6, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Here's how I understand eugenics, as a demographer who studies reproduction: Eugenics is the idea that science can tell us two things: (1) which population(s) are best and (2) how to manipulate birth, migration, and death to achieve a desirable population.
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Unions reduce sexism.
Look at what happens to male teacher salaries (blue line) v.s. female teacher salaries (red line) after collective bargaining laws expire.
August 5, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Unions reduce sexism.
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Just over a week left for applications for this role. Would suit an earlyish career demographer or demography-adjacent statistician who wants to live and work in the Pacific!
Join our team - we are hiring an Analyst to focus on population statistics in Pacific island countries and territories. Based in Suva, Fiji. Applications close on 10 August.
Ideal: #rstats, #git, #statistics, #demography and interest in small states & the Pacific.
careers.spc.int/job/statisti...
Ideal: #rstats, #git, #statistics, #demography and interest in small states & the Pacific.
careers.spc.int/job/statisti...
Statistics Analyst
Suva-based position Attractive expatriate package Join the principal development organisation in the region Description The Pacific Community (SPC) is the pr...
careers.spc.int
July 31, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Just over a week left for applications for this role. Would suit an earlyish career demographer or demography-adjacent statistician who wants to live and work in the Pacific!
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
🏅 Bravo à Béatrice Morselli pour sa mention d'honneur lors du Colloque Excellence en Relève @ciqss-qicss.bsky.social !
Sa présentation portait sur son mémoire « Residential Proximity of Canadian Siblings in Adulthood », dirigé par les professeur.e.s Solène Lardoux et @xavierst-denis.bsky.social
Sa présentation portait sur son mémoire « Residential Proximity of Canadian Siblings in Adulthood », dirigé par les professeur.e.s Solène Lardoux et @xavierst-denis.bsky.social
July 25, 2025 at 5:06 PM
🏅 Bravo à Béatrice Morselli pour sa mention d'honneur lors du Colloque Excellence en Relève @ciqss-qicss.bsky.social !
Sa présentation portait sur son mémoire « Residential Proximity of Canadian Siblings in Adulthood », dirigé par les professeur.e.s Solène Lardoux et @xavierst-denis.bsky.social
Sa présentation portait sur son mémoire « Residential Proximity of Canadian Siblings in Adulthood », dirigé par les professeur.e.s Solène Lardoux et @xavierst-denis.bsky.social
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
⭐🎓The Department of Sociology in Vienna @univie.ac.at invites applications for a Tenure Track Professor in Sociology with focus on Quantitative Social Science Research Methods | #Sociology | quant methods
Apply here (17 Sept 25): jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Tenure-T...
Apply here (17 Sept 25): jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Tenure-T...
July 18, 2025 at 8:17 PM
⭐🎓The Department of Sociology in Vienna @univie.ac.at invites applications for a Tenure Track Professor in Sociology with focus on Quantitative Social Science Research Methods | #Sociology | quant methods
Apply here (17 Sept 25): jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Tenure-T...
Apply here (17 Sept 25): jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Tenure-T...
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Some people have wondered why the hell a political scientist (me) is writing a book about the sociodemographic data collected on things like death certificates, census forms, and health surveys. THIS IS WHY.
1/4🧵
An article not to miss:
The First Americans still face staggering health disparities.
And a new JAMA study shows American Indians & Alaska Natives (AI/AN) are dying at even higher rates than official stats report.
www.statnews.com/2025/06/18/l...
An article not to miss:
The First Americans still face staggering health disparities.
And a new JAMA study shows American Indians & Alaska Natives (AI/AN) are dying at even higher rates than official stats report.
www.statnews.com/2025/06/18/l...
Why a lot of Native American deaths are not counted
Native American deaths are significantly undercounted because of errors in death certificates, a new study claims.
www.statnews.com
July 2, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Some people have wondered why the hell a political scientist (me) is writing a book about the sociodemographic data collected on things like death certificates, census forms, and health surveys. THIS IS WHY.
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
We’re lighting the I-35W bridge green tonight and tomorrow in honor of Melissa Hortman, who found joy and peace in trees and gardens 🌳
June 28, 2025 at 2:03 AM
We’re lighting the I-35W bridge green tonight and tomorrow in honor of Melissa Hortman, who found joy and peace in trees and gardens 🌳
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Which occupations carry the highest risk of sexual harassment—and who is doing the harassing?
Our new study finds two distinct patterns depending on whether harassment comes from inside or outside the workplace.
CEPR WP: cepr.org/publications...
Ungated: drive.google.com/file/d/1jPOV...
🧵 1/
Our new study finds two distinct patterns depending on whether harassment comes from inside or outside the workplace.
CEPR WP: cepr.org/publications...
Ungated: drive.google.com/file/d/1jPOV...
🧵 1/
April 1, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Which occupations carry the highest risk of sexual harassment—and who is doing the harassing?
Our new study finds two distinct patterns depending on whether harassment comes from inside or outside the workplace.
CEPR WP: cepr.org/publications...
Ungated: drive.google.com/file/d/1jPOV...
🧵 1/
Our new study finds two distinct patterns depending on whether harassment comes from inside or outside the workplace.
CEPR WP: cepr.org/publications...
Ungated: drive.google.com/file/d/1jPOV...
🧵 1/
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
LLM adoption boosts the quantity of scientific papers that researchers write by 25.7-89.3%, with the strongest quantity effects for East Asian scholars and in the social sciences.
But the papers are worse. Another quantity-quality tradeoff!
yianyin.net/index.html
But the papers are worse. Another quantity-quality tradeoff!
yianyin.net/index.html
May 16, 2025 at 6:29 PM
LLM adoption boosts the quantity of scientific papers that researchers write by 25.7-89.3%, with the strongest quantity effects for East Asian scholars and in the social sciences.
But the papers are worse. Another quantity-quality tradeoff!
yianyin.net/index.html
But the papers are worse. Another quantity-quality tradeoff!
yianyin.net/index.html
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
NEW ARTICLE: CREST Sociology's @scoavoux.bsky.social, @eollion.bsky.social, and @ppraeg.bsky.social's Machine Bias in Sociological Methods & Research, on why we can't use LLMs to generate meaningful survey data
Link: doi.org/10.1177/0049...
Preprint at @socarxiv.bsky.social: doi.org/10.31235/osf...
Link: doi.org/10.1177/0049...
Preprint at @socarxiv.bsky.social: doi.org/10.31235/osf...
April 22, 2025 at 2:00 PM
NEW ARTICLE: CREST Sociology's @scoavoux.bsky.social, @eollion.bsky.social, and @ppraeg.bsky.social's Machine Bias in Sociological Methods & Research, on why we can't use LLMs to generate meaningful survey data
Link: doi.org/10.1177/0049...
Preprint at @socarxiv.bsky.social: doi.org/10.31235/osf...
Link: doi.org/10.1177/0049...
Preprint at @socarxiv.bsky.social: doi.org/10.31235/osf...
New paper out at @sociologicalsci.bsky.social! Using an audit study design, we show that in non-tech occupations, job hoppers receive fewer callbacks than those with résumés showing stable careers. For tech occupations, we find the opposite pattern: job hopping increases the probability of callback!
NEW: Matissa Hollister, Nicole Denier, Xavier St-Denis, "Do Employers Care about Past Mobility? A Field Experiment Examining Hiring Preferences in Technology and Non-Technology Jobs." sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
sociologicalscience.com
May 1, 2025 at 3:10 PM
New paper out at @sociologicalsci.bsky.social! Using an audit study design, we show that in non-tech occupations, job hoppers receive fewer callbacks than those with résumés showing stable careers. For tech occupations, we find the opposite pattern: job hopping increases the probability of callback!
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
The biggest project I've worked on for the last chunk of years was just published. It asks, how big are US Black-white lifespan differences?
This might seem like a narrow question. I hope to convince you by the end that there are answers you didn't anticipate. And I hope some of them will move you.
This might seem like a narrow question. I hope to convince you by the end that there are answers you didn't anticipate. And I hope some of them will move you.
Three Ways of Looking at Black–White Mortality Differences in the United States | Annual Reviews
Everyone agrees that US Black deaths happen earlier than white deaths on average, but it is surprisingly challenging to find the best ways to summarize, quantify, and compare this gap. This review arg...
www.annualreviews.org
April 30, 2025 at 8:27 PM
The biggest project I've worked on for the last chunk of years was just published. It asks, how big are US Black-white lifespan differences?
This might seem like a narrow question. I hope to convince you by the end that there are answers you didn't anticipate. And I hope some of them will move you.
This might seem like a narrow question. I hope to convince you by the end that there are answers you didn't anticipate. And I hope some of them will move you.
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
"A new dataset, visualized as maps, reveals the extent to which African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, among other jobs." restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...
April 28, 2025 at 11:50 AM
"A new dataset, visualized as maps, reveals the extent to which African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, among other jobs." restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...
This paper is studying economic inequality in the very long term (thousands of years) "using Gini coefficients calculated on total house area including storage." Really interesting analysis of inequality using archeological data!
"This Special Feature represents a collective effort to accelerate archaeological assessment of economic inequality. Archaeological data allow us to explore fundamental drivers of economic inequality, test ideas about inequality from recent history & offer novel perspectives from broad perspective"
Introducing the Special Feature on housing differences and inequality over the very long term | PNAS
Introducing the Special Feature on housing differences and inequality over the very
long term
www.pnas.org
April 22, 2025 at 9:44 PM
This paper is studying economic inequality in the very long term (thousands of years) "using Gini coefficients calculated on total house area including storage." Really interesting analysis of inequality using archeological data!
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Some cool German/Swiss postdoc opportunities for a quantitative sociologist or similar in this thread:
April 11, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Some cool German/Swiss postdoc opportunities for a quantitative sociologist or similar in this thread:
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
🚨 Come research singlehood with me! I’m hiring a 3-year Postdoc w/interest in Family Demography to start this Fall. Please share!
📍 Barcelona (@cedemografia.bsky.social)
🔎 ERC-funded project 'SINGLE'
📅 Deadline – April 24, 2025
🔗 More info: shorturl.at/400eo
#Postdoc #Demography
📍 Barcelona (@cedemografia.bsky.social)
🔎 ERC-funded project 'SINGLE'
📅 Deadline – April 24, 2025
🔗 More info: shorturl.at/400eo
#Postdoc #Demography
a sign that says we 're hiring in orange on a white background
ALT: a sign that says we 're hiring in orange on a white background
media.tenor.com
March 25, 2025 at 8:07 AM
🚨 Come research singlehood with me! I’m hiring a 3-year Postdoc w/interest in Family Demography to start this Fall. Please share!
📍 Barcelona (@cedemografia.bsky.social)
🔎 ERC-funded project 'SINGLE'
📅 Deadline – April 24, 2025
🔗 More info: shorturl.at/400eo
#Postdoc #Demography
📍 Barcelona (@cedemografia.bsky.social)
🔎 ERC-funded project 'SINGLE'
📅 Deadline – April 24, 2025
🔗 More info: shorturl.at/400eo
#Postdoc #Demography
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Pregnancy is a particularly sensitive period, & exposure to wildfire smoke may lead to smaller than average babies. Smoke isn’t the only concern, stress alone can alter physiological processes during pregnancy.
www.latimes.com/lifestyle/st...
www.latimes.com/lifestyle/st...
Should pregnant people evacuate L.A. to escape the smoke?
Los Angeles' smoke levels pose unique risks to pregnant people and their fetuses. Here's what expectant parents should do to stay safe.
www.latimes.com
January 12, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Pregnancy is a particularly sensitive period, & exposure to wildfire smoke may lead to smaller than average babies. Smoke isn’t the only concern, stress alone can alter physiological processes during pregnancy.
www.latimes.com/lifestyle/st...
www.latimes.com/lifestyle/st...
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
Throughout American history, immigrants have consistently had similar or lower incarceration rates than US-born citizens, say researchers at Stanford, Princeton, Northwestern, and UC Davis. #econsky www.aeaweb.org/research/cha...
The immigration–crime link
Nearly two centuries of data show that immigrants commit fewer crimes than US-born citizens.
www.aeaweb.org
January 13, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Throughout American history, immigrants have consistently had similar or lower incarceration rates than US-born citizens, say researchers at Stanford, Princeton, Northwestern, and UC Davis. #econsky www.aeaweb.org/research/cha...
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
The Canadian government recently announced it is indefinitely pausing new permanent residency sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents. I wrote an op-ed to discuss what this pause means for thousands of immigrant families. theconversation.com/canada-halts... @ubcmigration.bsky.social
Canada halts new parent immigration sponsorships, keeping families apart
While some western cultures identify the family unit as couples and their children, many other cultures see older parents as an integral part of the family.
theconversation.com
January 9, 2025 at 5:49 PM
The Canadian government recently announced it is indefinitely pausing new permanent residency sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents. I wrote an op-ed to discuss what this pause means for thousands of immigrant families. theconversation.com/canada-halts... @ubcmigration.bsky.social
In a new paper just published in Demographic Research, we demonstrate how administrative data (Canadian tax data) open possibilities for studying partnership histories, income, and family dynamics of people across sexual minority status. Read here! www.demographic-research.org/articles/vol...
January 9, 2025 at 10:16 PM
In a new paper just published in Demographic Research, we demonstrate how administrative data (Canadian tax data) open possibilities for studying partnership histories, income, and family dynamics of people across sexual minority status. Read here! www.demographic-research.org/articles/vol...
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
I made a Starter Pack!
But I got tired after 70 names. Intended to be inclusive of the #work-family adjacent and interdisciplinary
Reply if you'd like to be added and please RT
@wfrn.bsky.social @cwfjournal.bsky.social
go.bsky.app/63Jq944
#Sociology #Demography #hdfs #PoliSky #academicsky
But I got tired after 70 names. Intended to be inclusive of the #work-family adjacent and interdisciplinary
Reply if you'd like to be added and please RT
@wfrn.bsky.social @cwfjournal.bsky.social
go.bsky.app/63Jq944
#Sociology #Demography #hdfs #PoliSky #academicsky
November 15, 2024 at 12:57 AM
I made a Starter Pack!
But I got tired after 70 names. Intended to be inclusive of the #work-family adjacent and interdisciplinary
Reply if you'd like to be added and please RT
@wfrn.bsky.social @cwfjournal.bsky.social
go.bsky.app/63Jq944
#Sociology #Demography #hdfs #PoliSky #academicsky
But I got tired after 70 names. Intended to be inclusive of the #work-family adjacent and interdisciplinary
Reply if you'd like to be added and please RT
@wfrn.bsky.social @cwfjournal.bsky.social
go.bsky.app/63Jq944
#Sociology #Demography #hdfs #PoliSky #academicsky
Reposted by Xavier St-Denis
This is a good time to share my starter pack filled with researchers in the areas of Stratification, Education, and Labor Market. Mostly sociology, a little on the economics side because that's who I know. Feel free to share; any omissions are accidents.
go.bsky.app/PeigPc9
go.bsky.app/PeigPc9
November 9, 2024 at 5:55 PM
This is a good time to share my starter pack filled with researchers in the areas of Stratification, Education, and Labor Market. Mostly sociology, a little on the economics side because that's who I know. Feel free to share; any omissions are accidents.
go.bsky.app/PeigPc9
go.bsky.app/PeigPc9