Biography
I am an Assistant Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, where my teaching and research engage with some of the most pressing questions of development, inequality, gender, and demographic change in contemporary India. Trained as a development economist and mathematical demographer, I completed my Ph.D. in Population Studies from the International Institute for Population Sciences, and my doctoral work concerned with conflict between women’s productive and reproductive labour. My academic journey also includes advanced training in economics from Aligarh Muslim University and Banaras Hindu University. My interest in demography, labour, and ageing, to reproductive health and household change with a particular focus on gender and social inequalities are driven by my fascination of reading the use of data and demographic tools in various domains that is governed by accuracy, transparency and reliability which often gets overlooked in the calculus of measuring health, development and population dynamic research. I also have engaged in evaluation varying facets of inequalities in health and social domain and in particular maternal health, women work and gender inequalities triggered by socio-economic and cultural attributes. Before joining TISS, I worked as a Researcher at the ICMR-National Institute of Medical Statistics and the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi, where I contributed to interdisciplinary research on public health, labour, gender, and nutrition, monitoring and evaluation, and evidence-based development policy using advanced quantitative and large-scale survey data analysis. At the International Institute for Population Sciences, I worked as an Assistant Professor (Research) under the Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH) project, where I was involved in advanced quantitative analysis, and policy-oriented public health research. My research lies at the intersection of labour economics, gender and demography, health economics, ageing, and social stratification, with a strong emphasis on quantitative methods and policy-oriented analysis. I remain deeply committed to producing evidence-based scholarship that bridges academic inquiry with public policy and social transformation. My teaching focuses on building strong analytical and quantitative foundations for public policy and social science research. I teach courses in econometrics, statistics, large-scale survey and census data analysis, microdata analytics, and data-driven policy research. Through these courses, I emphasize how statistical reasoning, econometric techniques, and empirical evidence can be effectively used to understand complex social and economic problems and to design informed public policies. My pedagogical approach combines theoretical clarity with hands-on training in real-world datasets such as NSS, NFHS, PLFS, and Time Use Survey. Selected Awards and Honours 2022 Best Technical Paper award, Demography India 2021 Young Scientist Summer Fellow, IIASA, Vienna, Austria 2021 Fellowship (3 Months), Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council, GoI 2021 Gender Project Travel Grant 2021 Junior Research Fellowship (5 Years), Union Grant Commission, GoI 2021 Fellowship (2 Years), IIPS and GoI Conferences [1] Ali Balhasan.“Prevalence and predictors of social cohesion and its association with mental health in India” in 4th Asian Population Association (APA) Conference-2018, Shanghai, China during 11-14 July 2018. [2] Ali Balhasan. “Effect of socio-economic inequality on mental health in India: Evidence from the WHO-SAGE Wave-1” 4th Asian Population Association (APA) Conference-2018, Shanghai, China during 11-14 July 2018. [3] Ali Balhasan, Dhillon P, Mohanty SK“Socio-Economic Inequalities in utilisation of maternal health care in pre and post National Health Mission period in India”16th annual conference of IASSH‐2018, JNU, New Delhi, India, during 10-12 December 2018. [4] Ali Balhasan.“Economic Inequalities and Mental Health Problems among Elderly in India, China, Ghana, Russia, and South Africa: A Decomposition Analysis” in 7th IHEPA annual conference-2019, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India during January 24- 25, 2019. [5] Ali Balhasan.“Decomposing Socio-Economic Inequality in the Utilization of Maternal Health Services in India, 2005-16” in 7th IHEPA annual conference- 2019, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India during January 24-25, 2019. [6] Ali Balhasan.Cointegration and Causality between Fertility and Female Labor Force Participation in India in International Economic association conference (IEA- 2021) [7] Ali Balhasan, Marois G, Dhillon P.Puzzling decline of female labor force participation in India and its prospects: an age-period-cohort approach in International Population Conference (IPC2021) [8] Ali Balhasan.Not beyond gender: the nexus between family composition and women’s participation in domestic activity or labour force in India in International Population Conference (IPC- 2021) [9] Ali Balhasan.“Motherhood Penalty: the role of childbearing on Indian women’s working life span” in 63rd Indian Labour Economics Conference (ISLE-2023) [10] Ali Balhasan.“Gender Divide in Paid and Unpaid Work among Muslim Women: Evidences from Indian Time Use Survey” in International Interdisciplinary Series of Conferences Workshops [1] Gender Analysis of Health: Workshop for researchers using large scale data set” during 10th - 15th October, 2019 at IIPS, Mumbai, India. [2] ”Advanced Methods in Large Scale Data Analysis” during 7th - 9th December, 2018 at JNU, New Delhi, India. [3] “Applied Econometric Methods” organised by Geo-Spatial Mapping Project, IIPS, Mumbai. [4] Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Machine Learning, NIT Hamirpur [5] “IZA/FCDO ONLINE Short Course on Research Skills for South Asia” to be held online on September 14-15, 2021 [6] “Introduction to RDemographic and spatial analysis: April 5-9,2021” conducted by Max Plank Institute for Demographic Research and IIPS Professional Member [1] Life Member, IHEPA [2] Life Member, IIPSAA [3] Life Member, IASSHA Session Chair [1] Chaired Session on ”Diversity and social change” in the Annual Conference on Cultural Diversity and Development On 21 March 2023 Organised by Centre for Public Policy, Habitat and Human Development, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai Invited Talks/Seminar/Lectures [1] Invited seminar talk on ”Demographic Dividend in India: Opportunities and Challenges” in the Department of Economics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi Referee for Journals PlosOne, BMC Public Health, BMC Women’s Health, Huminities and Social Science Communication, Applied Economics, Journal of Development Policy and Practice