Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

We study the structure and dynamics of populations and explore issues of political relevance, such as aging, fertility, and the redistribution of work over the life course, as well as digitization and the use of new data sources for the estimation of migration flows.

New Faces at the MPIDR | October 02, 2026

Welcome, Kirsten Emmert!

The team of the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science is happy to welcome Kirsten Emmert as the new IMPRS-PHDS Coordinator. Kirsten holds degrees in Molecular Medicine, Neuroscience, and Psychology and has gained experience in research and research management through a variety of positions over the past years. Before joining the MPIDR, Kirsten was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Health Promotion and Prevention at the University of Bremen.  More

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Preparatory courses at the MPIDR

European Doctoral School of Demography (EDSD)

The European Doctoral School of Demography is an eleven-month sponsored program that is offered every year aiming to provide students with an appropriate high-level education in demography to pursue their doctoral studies. Students will acquire a solid knowledge base on the causes and consequences of demographic change, population data, statistical and mathematical demography, as well as modeling, simulation, and forecasting.  More

All Events

Introduction to our research groups

Gender Inequalities and Fertility

News | September 30, 2026

New Horizon Europe Project LIFe Traces Inequalities Across Lives and Generations

How much do the circumstances of your birth shape where you end up as an adult? The project LIFe (Intergenerational Fairness: A Life-Course Approach) brings together research and policy-analysis institutions across Europe to examine how advantages and disadvantages build up over entire lifetimes and across generations. MPIDR’s Department of Digital and Computational Demography will take a leading role in modelling demographic and health developments.  More

Selected Publications

Loi, S.; Li, P.; Myrskylä, M.:

Unequal weathering: how immigrants’ health advantage vanishes over the life-course   Journal of Migration and Health 11:100303, 1–11. (2025)

Micheletti, C.; Villavicencio, F.:

On the relationship between life expectancy, modal age at death, and the threshold age of the life table entropy   Demographic Research 51:24, 763–788. (2024)

More Publications

Perspectives

Blog@MPIDR

Questions and Answers

Being a Researcher at the MPIDR

Working at MPIDR

Life & Research in Rostock

New Issue 2/2026 available | June 30, 2026

The Quarterly German Newsletter

Press Release | September 28, 2026

Tracking Researchers in Ukraine Through War and Armed Conflict

A study based on publication data traces how researchers moved within Ukraine and across borders between 2009 and 2022, with conflict-affected regions losing scholars while others became increasingly important destinations. These shifts were already underway after Russia illegally annexed Crimea and fighting began in the Donbas in 2014, underscoring that scholarly mobility during conflict cannot simply be understood as a matter of free choice.  More

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The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock is one of the leading demographic research centers in the world. It's part of the Max Planck Society, the internationally renowned German research society.