Ridhi Kashyap

Ridhi Kashyap is an Associate Professor of Social Demography at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College. She is based at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science where she co-leads the Digital and Computational Science strand. Her work bridges traditional demographic methods with computational approaches and digital data sources to address pressing population issues.

Her research interests span multiple areas of demography including population health, gender inequality, family dynamics, migration, and the impacts of digital technologies on demographic outcomes. She has made significant contributions to understanding the demographic manifestations of son preference, the relationship between educational expansion and marriage patterns, and the social and demographic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her methodological interests focus on computational approaches such as agent-based models, microsimulation, and machine learning, as well as leveraging new data streams from digital trace data.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong thematic focus on the intersection of digital technology and demographic processes. Her work consistently examines how digital technologies impact population health, gender equality, migration patterns, and social inequalities. A significant portion of her recent research addresses pandemic-related mortality and health outcomes, while maintaining her longstanding interest in gender disparities within demographic processes. Her methodological approach increasingly incorporates computational techniques and novel data sources like social media to address demographic questions.

Ridhi Kashyap actively contributes to the field through her leadership in the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and her work on platforms like digitalgendergaps.org, which uses social media and survey data to monitor global digital gender inequalities related to Sustainable Development Goals. Her research has important implications for policy in areas of gender equality, digital inclusion, and population health.