Departmental homepageProfessor Szreter was born in Hull and went to school in Birmingham. He studied History at Cambridge and then undertook his PhD with the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. He was a research assistant to Michael Young, Lord Young of Dartington, prior to his appointment as Assistant Lecturer and then Lecturer in Modern Demographic History in the Faculty of History at Cambridge. He was promoted to Reader and then Professor of History and Public Policy in the Faculty. He co-founded History & Policy, a non-profit network promoting better public policy through a greater understanding of history. He is currently the director of research on a Faculty project: New Frontiers in Demographic History. In St John's, he is a founder-member of the Health Inequalities Discussion Group and secretary of the Climate Crisis Committee.
Professor Szreter supervises PhD students in his field.
His research focuses on the historic variation in human fertility, including the impact of STIs, and the history of welfare and social security systems and their relationship with health and economic growth.
Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940 (Cambridge U.P. 1996)
Health and Wealth: Studies in History and Policy (Rochester U.P. 2005).
Sex Before the Sexual Revolution: Intimate Life in England 1918-1963 (Cambridge U.P. 2010)
After the Virus, Lessons from the Past for a Better Future (Cambridge U.P. 2021)
