BIO
Jan Kok is Professor of Economic, Social and Demographic History at Radboud University, and director of the Radboud Group for Historical Demography and Family History. Also, he is coeditor-in-chief of The History of the Family. He studied social history at the Free University in Amsterdam, and in 1993 joined the International Institute of Social History, where he helped to develop the Historical Sample of the Netherlands, a large database with reconstructed life courses. Much of his research is based on this database and covers publications on leaving home and internal migration, on spacing and stopping, on marriage timing and celibacy, etc. Currently, he is exploring the research potential of Dutch colonial population administrations, such as the registers kept on the population of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Also, he is heading a research project titled Giants of the Modern World. A New History of Heights and Health in The Netherlands, 1811-1940. Using detailed information on individuals, their families and their environments, this projects aims to answer the question of why the Dutch have becomes the tallest people in the world.