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 | November 05, 2026

Welcome, Marcelo Fleury!

The Research Group: Mortality Inequalities welcomes Marcelo Fleury as a joint PhD student with Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). Prior to working at MPIDR, Marcelo worked with researchers in NIDI’s “Health, Ageing and Mortality” team on longitudinal research on health and chronic disease across European populations and has been part of the 2025-2026 European Doctoral School of Demography cohort.   More

November

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November

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IDEM 187

Topics in Digital and Computational Demography

This course provides an introduction to the emerging field of Digital and Computational Demography, integrating demographic theory with modern data science and computational approaches. Participants will learn how to leverage diverse data sources, including digital trace data, to investigate substantive questions about population processes while critically evaluating issues of data quality, representativeness, ethics, and methodological limitations.  More

All Events

Call for Research Contributions

Rethinking Fertility Relationally

Introduction to our research groups

Family Demography in Sub-Saharan Africa

PHD | November 03, 2026

Congratulations, Ricarda Duerst!

Ricarda Duerst from the Laboratory of Population Health at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), successfully defended her doctoral thesis, “Learning from past mistakes: Uncertainty in demographic forecasting“, at the University of Helsinki. Her findings contribute to our understanding of forecasting problems and help researchers improve probabilistic demographic forecasts.  More

Selected Publications

Andrade Santacruz, J. C.; Camarda, C. G.; Pifarré i Arolas, H.:

Cohort mortality forecasts indicate signs of deceleration in life expectancy gains   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 122:35, e2519179122–e2519179122. (2025)

Lorenti, A.; De Rose, A.; Racioppi, F.:

Volunteering during early retirement reduces depression   Social Science and Medicine 367:117790, 1–12. (2025)

More Publications

New Issue 3/2026 available | October 06, 2026

The Quarterly German Newsletter

Questions and Answers

Being a Researcher at the MPIDR

Working at MPIDR

Life & Research in Rostock

Perspectives

Blog@MPIDR

November 01, 2026

New IUSSP Panel on Digital Demography, AI, and Open Science

We are happy to announce that the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) has created the Scientific Panel on Digital Demography, AI, and Open Science, which starts on November 1, 2026, and will run until November 2030. The panel is co-chaired by Aliakbar Akbaritabar from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) and the University of Rostock, and Francesco Rampazzo from the University of Manchester.  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.