Scientific Presentations

LabTalks­@DCD

Department of Digital and Computational Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, July 09, 2025

11:00 AM: Talk with Gert Stulp - Exploring the limits of predicting births using survey and administrative data

Auditorium - 057

Abstract

Predicting life outcomes is important because it can inform theory and enable targeted interventions. Unlike fields like climate science or medicine, social science struggles to predict lifecourse outcomes. Perhaps such outcomes are inherently unpredictable due to chance, or because conditions necessary for accurate predictions — large, high-quality datasets — are unmet. We study the predictability of one key life event — having a child within three years — under ideal conditions by organising the PreFer [Predicting Fertility] data challenge that draws on high-quality surveys and rich administrative records from the Netherlands. Over a hundred researchers applied advanced techniques to the prediction task, offering a rare test of the predictability of fertility. We show that predictions based on survey data outperform those based on administrative records, although the predictive ability was still far off the theoretical maximum. We show how we can capitalise on the information from different models and datasets. We end by discussing the role of prediction in the social sciences. 

About

Gert Stulp is a professor of computational social science at the Department of Sociology, University of Groningen. His work focuses on understanding reproductive decision-making, investigating how social and biological factors shape variation in how many children people have or desire. His research combines a range of methods, including surveys, network analysis, machine learning, and simulation. Website: www.gertstulp.com 
 

Register to Take Part

You would like to attend the Online Seminar Talk? You are very welcome. Please register by writing an e-mail to office-zagheni@demogr.mpg.de.

Online Seminar Talk, July, 9th from 11:00 a.m. to 12 p.m. (Rostock time)