About me
I am an academic researcher and consultant with a portfolio of expertise in various aspects of education statistics and policy, especially at the intersection of education and demography.
Latest Updates
Occasionally I publish short notes with news, or to provide some commentary and additional context on recent publications.
Curriculum Vitae
degrees
Habilitation, Vienna University of Economics and Business 2017
D.Phil., University of Oxford, Department of Education 2010
M.Sc., University of Oxford 2002
B.A. Hons., University of Cambridge 2001
appointments
Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR) - UNESCO, Paris, France
Senior Policy Analyst (Monitoring Lead)
2018–22
Vienna Institute of Demography (VID), Austrian Academy of Sciences
Research Scholar
2008–20
World Population Program, International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria
Research Scholar
2008–17
Research Institute Human Capital and Development, Wirtschaftsuniversität
Wien (WU)
Post-doctoral Researcher
2015–16
fellowships and funding
Project Leader, research study on “Education and the Sustainable Development Goals” for the The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, EUR 20,000 2015-16
Project Leader, research study on “Education and the Sustainable Development Goals” for the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR), EUR 44,000 2015-16
Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Global Asia Institute, National University of Singapore (NUS) 2013
consultancies
short-term projects for national and international agencies, incl. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, World Bank, Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), UNESCO, UNDP
since 2005teaching
Courses
- Demography (undergraduate), Fall 2021, in German, ECTS points
- International Educational Development (graduate), Fall 2018, in English, ECTS points
- Interdisciplinary Socioeconomic Research Lab II ‘Lifelong Learning in an Ageing Knowledge Economy’ (graduate), Spring 2018, in German, 4 ECTS points
- Interdisciplinary Socioeconomic Research Lab I ‘Lifelong Learning in an Ageing Knowledge Economy’ (graduate), Fall 2017, in German, 4 ECTS points
- Advanced Demographic Methods (graduate), Fall 2017, in German/English, 4 ECTS points
- Econometrics and Empirical Economic Research (graduate), Spring 2017, in English, 8 ECTS points
- Econometrics and Empirical Economic Research (graduate), Spring 2016, in English, 8 ECTS points
- Advanced Demographic Methods II (graduate), Spring 2016, in German, 4 ECTS points
- Statistics for Economics and Socioeconomics using R (undergraduate), Fall 2015, in German, 4 ECTS points
- Econometrics and Empirical Economic Research (graduate), Spring 2015, in English, 8 ECTS points
Supervision
- Master’s student at Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). Topic: ``Financing Global Education - new and innovative multilateral financing mechanisms towards SDG 4''
- Ph.D. student at Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). Topic: ``School and Reproductive Trajectory of Disadvantage Teenage Girls in Latin America''
- Ph.D. student on IIASA’s Young Scientists Summer Programme. Topic: ``Education and fertility in the Republic of Korea''
- Ph.D. student on IIASA’s Young Scientists Summer Programme. Topic: ``Projecting labour force participation rates in Germany''
other activities and contributions
Expert Panel Membership
SDG 4 Technical Cooperation Group (TCG) sice 2019
Inter-agency Education Equity Research Initiative since 2016
UNECE Task Force on Measuring Human Capital 2014–2018
International Network for Education Simulation Modeling 2008-2010
Refereeing
Editorship
Managing Editor of the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2011-2017
additional skills and qualifications
Languages
- German (fluent)
- English (fluent)
- French (low intermediate)
- Arabic (low intermediate)
Computing
- proficient user of office applications on Windows and Mac
- statistical programming in R, Stata, SAS, SPSS, Mathematica, Haskell
- typesetting using LaTeX
- interactive web design using html, css, Javascript
Publications
refereed journal articles
Dharamshi, A., B. Barakat, L. Alkema, and M. Antoninis. 2022. “A Bayesian Model for Estimating SDG Indicator 4.1.2: School Completion Rates.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series C (Applied Statistics) (forthcoming).
Barakat, B., and R. Shields. 2019. “Just Another Level? Comparing Quantitative Patterns of Global School and Higher Education Expansion.” Demography 56 (3): 917–34. doi:10.1007/s13524-019-00775-5.
Barakat, B., and S. Bengtsson. 2018. “What Do We Mean by School Entry Age? Conceptual Ambiguity and Its Implications: The Example of Indonesia.” Comparative Education 54 (2): 203–24.
Barakat, B., and J. Crespo Cuaresma. 2017. “Credit Where Credit Is Due: An Approach to Education Returns Based on Shapley Values.” Education Economics 25 (5): 533–41.
Barakat, B.. 2018. “Time Is Money: Disentangling Higher Education Cost-Sharing and Commodification Through Deferred Graduate Retirement.” Higher Education Policy 31 (3): 289–307.
Barakat, Bilal. 2017. “Generalised count distributions for modelling parity.” Demographic Research 36 (26): 745–58. doi:10.4054/DemRes.2017.36.26.
Abel, Guy, Bilal Barakat, Samir KC, and Wolfgang Lutz. 2016. “Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals Leads to Lower World Population Growth.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 113 (50): 14294–99. doi:10.1073/pnas.1611386113.
Barakat, B.. 2016. “Improving Adult Literacy Without Improving the Literacy of Adults? A Cross-National Cohort Analysis.” World Development 87: 242–57. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.06.015.
Barakat, B.. 2016. “‘Sorry i Forgot Your Birthday!’: Adjusting Apparent School Participation for Survey Timing When Age Is Measured in Whole Years.” International Journal of Educational Development 49: 300–313. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2016.03.011.
Goujon, A., S. Kc, M. Speringer, B. Barakat, M. Potancoková, J. Eder, E. Striessnig, R. Bauer, and W. Lutz. 2016. “A Harmonized Dataset on Global Educational Attainment Between 1970 and 2060: An Analytical Window into Recent Trends and Future Prospects in Human Capital Development.” Journal of Demographic Economics 82 (3): 315–63. doi:10.1017/dem.2016.10.
Barakat, B.. 2015. “A ‘Recipe for Depopulation’? School Closures and Local Population Decline in Saxony.” Population, Space and Place 21 (8): 735–53.
Zhao, D., and B. Barakat. 2015. “The Increasingly Long Road to School in Rural China: The Impacts of Education Network Consolidation on Broadly Defined Schooling Distance in Xinfeng County of Rural China.” Asia Pacific Education Review 16 (3): 413–31. doi:10.1007/s12564-015-9380-y.
Barakat, B., and S. Basten. 2014. “Modelling the Constraints on Consanguineous Marriage When Fertility Declines.” Demographic Research 30 (9): 277–312. doi:10.4054/DemRes.2013.30.9.
Barakat, B., and R. E. Durham. 2013. “Drop-Out Mayors and Graduate Farmers: Educational Fertility Differentials by Occupational Status and Industry in Six European Countries’.” Demographic Research 28 (42): 1213–62. doi:10.4054/DemRes.2013.28.42.
Barakat, B., R. E. Durham, and C. Rodrigues Guimarães. 2013. “Age Compositional Adjustments for Educational Participation Indicators.” Population 68 (4): 607–26.
Barakat, B.. 2012. “A Second Look at School-Life Expectancy.” International Journal of Educational Development 32 (4): 564–74. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2011.09.006.
KC, S., B. Barakat, A. Goujon, V. Skirbekk, and W. Lutz. 2010. “Projection of Populations by Level of Educational Attainment, Age and Sex for 120 Countries for 2005–2050.” Demographic Research 22 (15). doi:10.4054/DemRes.2010.22.15.
Barakat, B.. 2008. “Education and Intra-Alliance Conflict: Contrasting and Comparing Popular Struggles in Apartheid South Africa and Palestine.” Research in Comparative and International Education 3 (1). Symposium Journals: 5–18. doi:10.2304/rcie.2008.3.1.5.
contributions to edited volumes
Spiel, S. AND Busemeyer, C. AND Schwartzmann. 2018. “The Contribution of Education to Social Progress.” In Rethinking Society for the 21st Century: Report of the International Panel on Social Progress, 753–78. Cambridge University Press.
Bengtsson, S., B. Barakat, and R. Muttarrak. 2018. The Role of Education in Enabling the Sustainable Development Agenda. Routledge.
Barakat, B.. 2016. “Education Trends in India: Recent Census Results in Context.” In Contemporary Demographic Transformations in China, India and Indonesia, edited by Gavin Jones and Christophe Guilmoto, 177–93. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-24783-0_11.
Moser, E., A. Prskawetz, G. Feichtinger, and B. Barakat. 2016. “Maximizing Female Labor Force Participation in a Stationary Population.” In Dynamic Perspectives on Managerial Decision Making, edited by H. Dawid, K. F. Doerner, G. Feichtinger, P. M. Kort, and A. Seidl, 167–88. Springer.
Barakat, B., and R. E. Durham. 2014. “Future Education Trends.” In World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century, edited by W. Lutz, W. P. Butz, and S. KC. Oxford University Press.
Skirbekk, V., E. Loichinger, and B. Barakat. 2012. “The Aging of the Workforce in European Countries: Demographic Trends, Retirement Projections, and Retirement Policies.” In The Oxford Handbook of Work and Aging, edited by J. W. Hedge and W. C. Borman. New York: Oxford University Press.
Barakat, B., D. Carson, A. Taylor, R. Basu, and L. Wang. 2011. “Education, Remoteness and Population Dynamics.” In Demography at the Edge: Remote Human Populations in Developed Nations, edited by D. Carson, R. Rasmussen, P. C. Ensign, A. Taylor, and L. Huskey, 225–70. Farnham, England: Ashgate.
Barakat, B.. 2009. “Unterschiede Im Geburtenverhalten Nach Ausbildungsniveau.” In Familienentwicklung in Österreich: Erste Ergebnisse Des Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) 2008/09, edited by I Buber and N Neuwirth. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences & Austrian Institute for Family Studies.
Barakat, B.. 2009. “Deepening the Divide: The Differential Impact of Protracted Conflict on Tvet Vs Academic Education in Palestine.” In International Handbook of Education for the Changing World of Work, edited by R. Maclean and D. Wilson, 978–71. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-5281-1_54.
Barakat, B.. 2007. “The Struggle for Palestinian National Education Past and Present.” In Aspects of Education in the Middle East and North Africa, edited by C. Brock and L. Levers. Oxford: Symposium.
book reviews
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working papers and reports
Barakat, B.. 2014. “Revisiting the History of Fertility Concentration and Its Measurement.” Working Paper 01/14. Vienna Institute of Demography (VID).
Barakat, B., J. Holler, K. Prettner, and J. Schuster. 2010. “The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Labour and Education in Europe.” Working Paper 06/10. Vienna Institute of Demography (VID).
Goujon, A., and B. Barakat. 2010. “Future Demographic Challenges in the Arab World.” Occasional Papers 75. The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies; Research (ECSSR), United Arab Emirates.
Urdal, H., B. Barakat, and J. Paulson. 2010. “Youth, Education, and Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa.” Background paper for the World Bank MENA flagship report
Barakat, B., Z. Karpinska, and J. Paulson. 2008. “Education and Fragility.” Prepared for the Interagency Network on Education in Emergencies (INEE)
Kane, L., B. Barakat, A. Inglis, Z. Karpinska, J. Paulson, and R. Yarrow. 2007. “Education for Livelihoods and Civic Participation in Post-Conflict Countries: Conceptualizing a Holistic Approach to TVET Planning and Programming in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Discussion Paper 3. UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical; Vocational Education; Training.
invited talks
- FuturAbility SDG-Indikatoren-Workshop, 03.03.2020: Aktuelle Pläne und zukünftige Optionen, nachhaltige Bildung zu messen
- Entwicklungspolitische Tagung der Stadt Wien, 28.11.2019: The Global Education Architecture And The Struggle To Reach Furthest Behind First
- SDG 4 Technical Cooperation Group (TGC) Indicator Development Working Group, 28.08.2019: A Refined Approach to Estimating the Completion Rate
- Southern African Development Community (SADC) Ministerial and Senior Officials meeting, 17.06.2019: Migration, Displacement and Education: Building Bridges, Not Walls
- Northwest A&F University, Yangling, China, 07.11.2018: Education, rural-to-urban migration, and sustainable rural development Recent international trends
- Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, 15.12.2017: Global Population Growth and the SDGs
- University of Passau, 29.11.2017: The Demography of Education and International Development
- University of Oxford, Department of Education, 28.02.2017: Demography and International Educational Development
- Agence Française De Développement, 23.02.2017: Alternative demographic scenarios for Africa and their consequences for development
- Europa-Universität Flensburg, 25.10.2016: Schulschließungen und regionale Ungleichheit: Bevölkerungsgeographische Aspekte
- Northwest A&F University, China, 05.09.2016: Spatial aspects of education and sustainable development
- Vierte Österreichische Leerstandskonferenz: ‘Auslastung: Nicht genügend!’, 15.01.2015: Demografische Betrachtung
- Brazilian Network of Education and Labor Markets, 09.12.2014: Human Capital, Demographic Change, Ageing and Labour Force Research at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (video stream)
- National University of Singapore (NUS), 26.02.2013: Dispersion of Completed Birth Parity: Empirical Patterns and Modelling Options
- Workshop Der Umgang mit Vielfalt im Bildungswesen, 14.05.2012: Vielfalt im Österreichischen Bildungswesen: Status Quo Analyse aus demographischer Perspektive
major conference presentations
- CIES, San Francisco, 17.04.2019: Bridging gaps in school completion statistics with the ABC (Adjusted Bayesian Completion Rates) model
- CIES, San Francisco, 16.04.2019: Resource allocation for inclusive education: analysis for GEM Report 2019
- GESF, Global Education and Skills Forum, Dubai, 23.03.2019: A world of bridges, not walls: Migration, displacement and education
- WCCES, Beijing, 24.08.2016: Are The Education SDGs Still Unfair On Africa?
- CIES, Vancouver, 07.03.2016: Variations In Educational Inequality Over Time, Improvement Of The Educational Process Or Mathematical Artefact?
- APA, Kuala Lumpur, 28.07.2015: Education Trends In India: Recent Census Results In Context
- CIES, Washington D.C., 09.03.2015: Raising Adult Literacy Without Raising The Literacy Of Adults? A Cross-national Analysis Of Literacy Trends From A Cohort Perspective
- EPC, Budapest, 27.06.2014: Time-of-Survey Dependence of Apparent Educational Participation: A Demographic Perspective
- CIES, Toronto, 11.03.2014: Time-of-Survey Dependence of Apparent Educational Participation: A Demographic Perspective
- Joint Eurostat/UNECE Work Session on Demographic Projections, Rome, 31.10.2013: Estimating Transition Age Schedules For Long-term Projections Of Global Educational Attainment
- WCCES, Buenos Aires, 25.06.2013: Educational Contingency Planning: Disentangling Robust, Flexible, And Adaptive Actions
- Österreichische Statistiktage, Vienna, 19.09.2012: ‘Leveling The Playing Field’ With Age-standardized Education Indicators
- EPC, Stockholm, 16.06.2012: Unskilled Mayors And Graduate Farmers: Educational Fertility Differentials By Occupational Status And Industry In Six European Countries
- CIES, Puerto Rico, 27.04.2012: Way Past 2015: Critically Debating The Feasibility, Utility, And Interpretation Of Long-term Educational Development Projections
- AK Bildungsgeographie, Perpignan, 30.06.2011: Higher Education Mobility Imbalances Between Germany and Austria: How Much Do We Actually Know?
- CIES, Montreal, 04.05.2011: Driving Blindfolded: Just How Good An Approximation Is ‘School Life Expectancy’?
- CIES, Montreal, 02.05.2011: Thinking In Generations: The Production And Critical Interpretation Of Long-term Projections Of Educational Attainment
- APA, New Delhi, 17.11.2010: Arguments, Scenarios And Very Many Experts: A New Approach To Long-range Global Demographic Forecasting
- EPC, Vienna, 02.09.2010: A Recipe For Depopulation? School Closures And Regional Population Decline In Saxony
- ECER, Helsinki, 26.08.2010: The Global Expansion of Schooling in the 20th Century: New Data in Context
- ECER, Helsinki, 25.08.2010: A Second Look at School Life Expectancy: Insights From Demography
- IUSSP, Marrakesh, 02.10.2009: The Educational Attainment Profile Of The Future Global Labour Force
- AK Bildungsgeographie, Bad Herrenalb, 25.06.2009: Schule weg, alle weg? Der Effekt von Grundschulschließungen auf lokale Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Sachsen
- Conference Empty Country and Lively Cities. Spatial Differentiation in the Face of Demographic Change, Berlin, 07.05.2009: Schooling the Few: Educational Causes and Consequences of Regional Population Decline
Links
Click on the thumbnails above to visit the institutions I am affiliated with, or my profile pages in academic and professional networks. You can also contact me directly below.