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March 12, 2026
Moradhvaj Dhakad joined the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in November 2025. During his time at IIASA, he collaborated with Erich Striessnig, Nandita Saikia, Samir K.C. and Wolfgang Lutz to explore why mortality among working-age adults remains high in India despite rapid economic growth. They found that education, at both the individual and community levels, was more strongly associated with lower premature mortality than income or household wealth. more
March 12, 2026 | New Faces at MPIDR
The Laboratory of Demographic Data welcomes Moradhvaj Dhakad as a new team member. Moradhvaj is joining the Datalab as a scientist researcher as part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship program. Prior to joining MPIDR, he worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), University of Vienna and the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He completed his PhD in Population Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and holds a Master’s in the same field from the International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai. During his time at MPIDR, Moradhvaj will work on a scientific project focusing on the burden of adult mortality in India, with a particular focus on socioeconomic inequality. more
March 04, 2026
Migration research focuses primarily on high-income countries and regions, such as Europe, North America, and parts of Asia. Despite their significant migrant populations, researchers have found that low-income countries, particularly in Africa and parts of Asia, are underrepresented.
A recent study identified and analyzed about 125,000 migration-related publications. It shows that research output depends largely on the national research infrastructure and the authors' affiliation with specific institutions. more
February 25, 2026 | Overview
Here is an overview of the latest reading recommendations for papers published by scientists at the MPIDR. more
February 20, 2026 | Congratulations
MPIDR researcher Philipp Dierker has won the Best Paper Award of the German Society for Demography (DGD). Philipp received the award on February 11 at the DGD's Workshop on “Changing Work Ability: Health, Disability, Care Work in the Context of Demographic Developments” for his paper "Re-partnering and single mothers‘ mental health and life satisfaction trajectories" in the Journal of Marriage and Family. more
February 16, 2026 | New Faces at MPIDR
The Lab of Population Dynamics and Sustainable Well-being welcomes Mallika Snyder as a new team member. Mallika joins MPIDR after spending over two years at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in New York, where she worked as an applied demographer developing subnational population projections to inform UN humanitarian action. She is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Ph.D. program in Demography and the M.A. program in Statistics. The title of her dissertation was "Mortality Crises as Experienced by Their Survivors: Computational Approaches to the Study of Bereavement." more
February 06, 2026 | New Research Group
For more than five decades, the Max Planck Research Groups have been a key focus of promoting young scientists within the Max Planck Society. The selection process for group leader positions is rigorous. Last year, Marcus Ebeling, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), successfully completed the process. He will lead the 'Medical Demography' research group from July onwards. more
January 30, 2026 | Phd
Donata Stonkute, from the Laboratory of Population Health at MPIDR, successfully defended her doctoral thesis, “Measuring and Explaining the Educational Gradient in Health Across Europe: The Role of Individual and Contextual Factors”, at the University of Helsinki. Her findings advance comparative ageing research and inform context-sensitive policies aimed at reducing health inequalities in older populations. more
January 29, 2026
We are happy to announce that our colleague Jutta Gampe has been appointed to the Chair of Excellence in Transformative Change: Statistical Demography at the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) Linz. more
January 15, 2026
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