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
02
–
06
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
Recommended Readings | October 27, 2026
Who You Know, and Where You Work: What Shapes Researchers’ First Career Moves
Introduction to our research groups
Max Planck – University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health (MaxHel)
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
Schubert, H.-A.; Dudel, C.; Kolobova, M.; Myrskylä, M.:
Revisiting the J-shape: human development and fertility in the United States Demography 61:6, 1949–1973. (2024)
Ferraretto, V.; Hiekel, N.; Vitali, A.:
Non-cohabiting partners’ economic characteristics and the transition to living together in Germany: a couple-level perspective European Journal of Population 41:25, 1–28. (2025)
More Publications
Call for Papers
Special Collection | Demographic Research | Kinship Demography: Structures, Dynamics, and Inequalities
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
Career
Open Positions
Postdoc/Research Scientist in the Kinship Inequalities Research Group University of Hong Kong – Max Planck PhD Studentship in Population Studies Population and Social Data Science Summer Incubator Program More
A peer-reviewed, open-access journal of population sciences
Perspectives
Blog@MPIDR
Doctoral Program
International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science
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