April 02, 2026 | News | Overview

Recommended Reading

Here is an overview of the latest reading recommendations for papers published by scientists at the MPIDR.

Family Complexity Influences Health in Mid-Adulthood

Paper first published: September 17, 2025

A child watches worried parents arguing in a brightly lit room.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), the University of Helsinki, Tilburg University, the Centre for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS), the University of Oxford and the Einstein Center for Population Diversity (ECPD) demonstrated for the first time that complex family life histories impact physical and mental health in middle adulthood. Notable gender-specific differences emerged: Women's physical health deteriorates significantly following a separation involving children, whereas men's mental and physical health are more adversely affected by any type of separation.

The study used data from the UK's "Understanding Society" survey to analyze the family histories and health of 3,407 women and 2,638 men aged 55. The researchers examined the participants’ family histories between the ages of 18 and 55, including their relationship status and whether they had become parents. By measuring this 'family complexity' — that is, the number and unpredictability of family transitions, such as separations, changes in partners, changes in relationship status or becoming a single parent — the researchers were able to show that the cumulative stress of family changes has long-term health consequences.

A key finding is that: Particularly for women mental health reflects current family status, while physical health depends heavily on the long-term accumulation of family stressors. “Our results show that health inequalities arise not only from current family status, but also from the entire life course,” explains Philipp Dierker.

Original Publication

Dierker, P., M. Kühn and Z. Van Winkle (2026): "The Role of Family Complexity in Mental and Physical Health in Mid-Adulthood." Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF) DOI: 10.1111/jomf.70019

Keywords

Analysing Biases in Genealogies

Paper published: December 5, 2025

Diagrams show age-dependent fertility and mortality rates from 1900-1905 with simulation results.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) investigated the accuracy of data from ascending genealogies for estimating fertility and mortality rates. Liliana P. Calderón-Bernal et al. run SOCSIM demographic microsimulation, using data from the Human Fertility Collection (HFC), the Human Fertility Database (HFD) and the Human Mortality Database (HMD), all for Sweden from 1751 to 2022, to simulate complete records of individuals including their kinship relationships. Based on these simulations, the researchers reconstructed virtual family trees and tested how three common biases in genealogies affect the estimates.

Certain families are missing altogether, because the lineage got extinct.
Only direct ancestors are considered, which results in missing data on collateral kin, particularly regarding children and young adults who died early.
Certain individuals are missing because they had no descendants or are omitted from the records.

The results:

When only direct ancestors are considered, the average number of children is significantly underestimated (by about 42%), and average life expectancy is significantly overestimated (by about 33%).
When the descendants of ancestors are included, fertility estimates become higher, and life expectancy estimates improve — the overestimation drops to about 1.8%.

Although genealogical data from online databases is useful and easily accessible, it is incomplete. A comparison of "fully recorded" and "distorted" family trees derived from a simulation shows that retrospective reconstruction and the type of ancestors included in a genealogy can lead to misestimation of the number of children people had and their lifespan. Including more relatives in the family tree makes the information more accurate.

This type of analysis is relevant given the emergence of new data sources resulting from the digitization and crowdsourcing of historical records, such as large online genealogy databases. Although these databases show promise for historical and kinship demographic research, they suffer from coverage and representativeness issues.

Original Publication

Liliana P. Calderón-Bernal, Diego Alburez-Gutierrez, Emilio Zagheni: Analysing Biases in Genealogies Using Demographic Microsimulation in European Journal of Population (2025); DOI: 10.1007/s10680-025-09756-4

Keywords

Genealogies, Microsimulation, Biases, Historical demography, Kinship

How Mobile are Highly Talented Academics Compared to Other Scientists?

Paper published: November 4, 2025

Diagram shows mobility status of female, male, and unknown researchers, divided into talents and others, with categories Non-mobile, International, Internal, and Both.

In a recent study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), the University of Rostock, the Science Policy and Strategy Department of the administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research examined whether regional and gender-specific differences exist in the academic mobility of highly talented scientists compared to other scientists.

Scopus bibliometric data was used to identify potentially talented academics and the comparison group. This enabled the researchers to track developments in mobility and immobility. The research team employed three different gender and geographical region classifications. Both groups were compared using multinomial probit regression models.

The results show that potentially talented researchers have a higher propensity for mobility. This applies to male researchers to a greater extent than to female researchers. Women were overrepresented among the non-mobile authors in the comparison group. Higher mobility is a privilege, as certain scientists have better access to it.

Originalpublikation

Aliakbar Akbaritabar, Robin Haunschild, Lutz Bornmann: A study of gender and regional differences in scientific mobility and immobility among researchers identified as potentially talented in Journal of Informetrics (2025), DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2025.101744

Keywords

Talented academics, Bibliometric indicators, Scientific mobility and immobility, Gendered mobility