Apoorva Jadhav, an Indian American demographer, has joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a non-resident scholar to lead a new initiative on India’s demographic dividend.
Apoorva Jadhav, a prominent Indian American demographer and public health expert, has been appointed as a non-resident scholar at the South Asia Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In this role, she will lead a new initiative focused on examining India’s “unfinished” demographic dividend.
Milan Vaishnav, the Director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment, expressed his enthusiasm for Jadhav’s appointment on LinkedIn, stating, “Delighted that Apoorva Jadhav has joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace South Asia Program as a non-resident scholar.” Jadhav reciprocated the sentiment, stating, “The delight is mutual. I’m eager to dig into the nuances of India’s demographic dividend. It’s a topic that deserves a much deeper look than the standard narrative often provides. Excited to get to work.”
With two decades of experience in evidence-based policy formulation and strategic resource allocation, Jadhav is well-equipped to tackle complex global demographic trends. Her work focuses on translating issues such as fertility changes, population aging, and migration into actionable frameworks for governments and international institutions.
Jadhav’s expertise lies at the intersection of technical demography and global governance. She previously served as the technical lead for the U.S. government’s diplomatic delegation to the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, where she contributed to discussions on critical demographic issues.
Currently, Jadhav is a senior fellow at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), where she leads efforts to communicate high-stakes demographic research aimed at influencing global discourse on low fertility, infertility, and population aging.
In addition to her role at PRB, Jadhav serves as a consultant for Demographic Futures at the William H. Gates Sr. Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her work there focuses on integrating demographic considerations into national development priorities.
Before her current positions, Jadhav was the senior demographer and statistician at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In this capacity, she was the agency’s chief demographic expert, overseeing demographic surveys and analyses in countries receiving USAID assistance. She played a crucial role in managing USAID’s multi-million dollar investments in the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS-7 to DHS-9) and international censuses in collaboration with the U.S. Census Bureau.
Jadhav’s leadership helped shape agency-wide policy and programmatic priorities on various topics, including global health and migration, by highlighting the connections between population dynamics and socioeconomic development.
Prior to her tenure at USAID, Jadhav was a National Institute on Aging postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. There, she contributed to the health and retirement study, focusing on the design, analysis, and policy implications of aging, particularly in relation to India.
Jadhav is a prolific author, having published extensively on topics such as reproductive health, gender roles, and the application of demographic data to policy-making. She also runs a Substack newsletter titled “Demography Matters,” where she analyzes demographic shifts and their implications for a different country each week.
Jadhav holds a PhD in demography from the University of Pennsylvania, an MPH from Emory University, and a BA in public health from Johns Hopkins University. Her extensive background and expertise position her to make significant contributions to the study of India’s demographic challenges and opportunities.
The information in this article is based on a report from The American Bazaar.