Population Studies: University of Groningen

General information

Population Studies is an international one-year Master's of Science programme. The objective of the MSc in Population Studies is to train students to become experts in the field of population studies.

To understand population dynamics in its historical and institutional context, knowledge of theories, methods and skills are required. In the Master's the focus is on the study of life events, such as birth, marriage, divorce, changes in health, migration and death. The programme focuses on demographic phenomena in Western and non-Western countries.

Career prospects

The programme is developed for future professionals in business, government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and academia. Demographers are competent in analyzing demographic data and trends, are trained to work with large data files and are able to interpret these data. Good population data are required for policies and programmes - for instance, in estimating the number of houses or schools to be built in the near future, or to estimate the future number of migrants in a country.

Admission requirements

Educational requirements:

The holder of a degree from the Sociale Geografie en Planologie or Technische Planologie Bachelor's programmes of the University of Groningen is expected to have the knowledge and skills required to start the degree programme, and is admitted to the degree programme on that basis.

The Admissions Board may require students with other Bachelor's degrees to follow additional courses before being allowed to join the degree programme. Students should have successfully completed at least two courses in statistics.

English language requirments

Applicants should be fluent in English. A minimum TOEFL score of 550 (213 for the computer version), 6.0 for the British Council's English Language Test or comparable scores in other recognized language tests is required for admission to the programme.