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.

January 15, 2026

Important Relatives

Family research usually focuses on the nuclear family, i.e. the father, mother and children. Relationships with other relatives have hardly been studied to date. Yet these relationships play an important role. More

January

Scientific Presentations

LabTalks@SocialDemography

Julia Leesch from the Research Group: Gender Inequalities and Fertility and Henrik-Alexander Schubert from the Laboratory of Fertility and Well-Being, Biosfer and MaxHel Center give a talk. More

All Events

Call for Abstracts

Second International Workshop on Life Course Analysis

Call for Papers

Conference: Kinship Structures, Dynamics, and Inequalities

Introduction to our research groups

Population Health

Letter to the Editor PNAS | December 16, 2025

Migration fell during the pandemic, but not in the ways we think

MPIDR researcher Jordan Klein publishes Letter to the Editor in PNAS. A recent PNAS study uses Facebook data to estimate monthly international migration flows worldwide. The authors report that global migration fell sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, declining by an estimated 64 percent in 2020, driven in part by the imposition of border controls, before rebounding strongly in 2022. Klein, together with Ingmar Weber have now published a Letter to the Editor in PNAS that brings these findings into conversation with the work of Chi et al. More

Selected Publications

Dańko, M. J.; Wiśniowski, A.; Jasilionis, D.; Jdanov, D. A.; Zagheni, E.:

Assessing the quality of data on international migration flows in Europe: the case of undercounting Migration Studies 12:2, 1–21. (2024)

Sobotka, T.; Zeman, K.; Jasilioniene, A.; Winkler-Dworak, M.; Brzozowska, Z.; Alustiza Galarza, A.; Németh, L.; Jdanov, D. A.:

Pandemic roller-coaster? Birth trends in higher-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic Population and Development Review, 1–36. (2023)

More Publications

Recommended Readings | November 11, 2025

Rethinking Formal Demography: Birth as an Event Experienced by the Child

New Issue 4/2025 available | December 18, 2025

The Quarterly German Newsletter

Questions and Answers

Being a Researcher at the MPIDR

Working at MPIDR

Life & Research in Rostock

Jobs & Fellowships

New articles every week

Open Access

Online Available Books

Press Release | July 02, 2025

Rapid Demographic Changes Reshape Family Structures

Gaza | November 25, 2025

Study Reveals Unprecedented Losses of Life and Life Expectancy

A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) and the Centre for Demographic Studies (CED) investigated the impact of the ongoing conflict in Gaza on mortality. They estimate that 78,318 (70,614-87,504) people were killed in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and December 31, 2024. As a result, life expectancy in Gaza in 2024 fell to nearly half the level expected without the war. An update of their analysis, produced after the publication of the study, revealed that the current violent death toll likely exceeds 100,000. More