Massimo Livi Bacci

Education

After classical studies, he graduated (in 1960) from the Faculty of Political Science "Istituto Cesare Alfieri [it]" of the University of Florence, and then studied in the United States at Brown University with a Fulbright scholarship. He began his university career at the University of Rome, becoming a full professor of demography at the University of Florence in 1966, teaching at the Faculty of Economics and Commerce and that of Political Science "Cesare Alfieri". He spent long periods of study and teaching in the American continent (United States, Mexico, Brazil) and in various European countries.

Academic and publishing activities

His scientific activity has concerned various aspects of current and historical demography. A supporter of the usefulness of incursions into disciplinary fields other than the one central to his interests (demography), useful for better understanding the issues, he has particularly studied history and the interactions between demographic dynamics and social policies. He has carried out journalistic activity for some national newspapers. During his career he has published books, essays and articles and directed research groups. He has also contributed to founding scientific societies, collaborating with public and private, national and international institutions. From 1973 to 1993 he was general secretary and president of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), a scientific society of demographic studies known throughout the world, of which he later became honorary president. In this capacity he was the organizational and scientific director of the quadrennial world conferences in Mexico in 1977, Manila in 1981, Florence in 1985, New Delhi in 1989, Montreal in 1993, and he instructed the preparatory phase of the Beijing conference in 1997.

In 2007, together with other scholars, he founded the online social policy magazine Neodemos.

Political activity

In the 2006 Italian general election he was elected Senator of the Republic for the Democrats of the Left. He subsequently joined the Democratic Party, being re-elected Senator in the 2008 Italian general election. He ended his parliamentary mandate in 2013.