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.

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

November

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November

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

Population Dynamics and Sustainable Well-Being

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

Selected Publications

Jackisch, J.; van Raalte, A. A.:

The contribution of childhood adversity to adult socioeconomic gradients in mortality: a Swedish birth cohort analysis Social Science and Medicine 365:117627. (2025)

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

Recap | October 28, 2026

Halfway through the BIOSFER Project

The BIOSFER project investigates how social, biological, and psychological factors influence emerging fertility patterns among young adults, as well as the extent to which the decline in fertility and its polarization can be attributed to social and biomedical factors. The project is a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), and Aarhus University (AU). In late September, all participants gathered at the Harnack House in Berlin. The BIOSFER 3.5 meeting marked the midpoint of the project. More