About

Portrait of Heini Väisänen smiling, wearing a green cardigan. Photo credit: Cyrille Krasker

Researcher at the Institut national d’études démographiques (INED), France, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Demography of the Global South units.

Principal investigator of Social Inequalities in the risk and aftermath of miscarriage, 01/2024-12/2028, funded by an ERC Starting Grant.

Photo credit: Cyrille Krasker

Previously Lecturer in Social Statistics and Demography at the University of Southampton, UK. I completed my PhD thesis ‘A Life Course Perspective to Abortions in Finland’ at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2016.

Associate Editor in Demographic Research and previously in Reproductive Health journal.

Feminist approaches to quantitative social science (FemQuant) network co-ordinator.

Download my CV from this link: CV Vaisanen Sep 2025 (PDF).

Research interests

  • The effect of sexual and reproductive events over the life course on health and wellbeing later in life.
  • Social demography.
  • Sexual and reproductive health with emphasis on induced abortions, miscarriages and pregnancy intentions over the life course.
  • Longitudinal, multilevel and event-history modelling as well as other quantitative research methods

Prizes and awards

  • The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) Early Career Award (Europe) 2023.
  • The British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) Early Career Award 2021.
  • European Society for Health and Medical Sociology (ESHMS) conference 2016: best paper prize with paper ‘Timing of abortions, births and relationship transitions in Finland’.
  • The British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) annual meeting Best student poster award in 2014 with ‘The association between education and induced abortion in Finland: a cohort perspective’.
  • The British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) Prize 2013 for best student dissertation or essay with my master’s dissertation at LSE ‘Social Inequalities and Fertility in Adolescence: Teenage Pregnancy Trends of Three Birth Cohorts in Finland’.

PhD Students

  • Kasabiiti Jennifer Asiimwe (2023-present): “Obstetric Fistula: An Indicator of Poor Obstetric Care in Uganda”. INED and University of Makerere [co-supervisor].
  • Eunice Williams (2018-2022): “Women economic empowerment and the household economy in sub-Saharan Africa”. University of Southampton [primary supervisor].
  • Maria Herica La Valle (2017-2020): “Life events and changes in health-related behaviours: An investigation using the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing”. University of Southampton [secondary supervisor].

Social media
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/heinivaisanen.bsky.social
Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@heinivaisanen
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/heinivaisanen

Find my work in Google Scholar and ORCID.