July 06, 2026 | News

Researchers Discuss Kinship, Care, and Inequality

Call for papers for special issue in “Demographic Research”

How do family structures result from and shape social inequality? In early June, international researchers gathered at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock to tackle these very questions as part of the conference "Kinship Structures, Dynamics and Inequalities".

Participants in the conference “Kinship Structures, Dynamics, and Inequalities” at the MPIDR.

In early June, the Scientific Panel on Kinship Structures, Dynamics, and Inequalities of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) hosted a conference of the same name at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock.

The conference brought together a large, diverse group of international scholars from various disciplines, creating a strong platform for discussing kinship structures, dynamics, and inequalities.

The event aimed to promote kinship demography as an interdisciplinary field bridging demography, sociology, anthropology, public health, statistics, and related areas. The conference provided a forum to discuss research on demographic change and the restructuring of family and kinship structures beyond the parent-child dyad and the nuclear household. Participants examined how kinship structures, their availability, and their functions differ across population groups. Additionally, there was an opportunity to present methodological innovations in kinship research, including new data sources, demographic methods, and comparative approaches.

Participants presented and discussed current research findings in five thematic areas:

• Forms of the extended family,
• Availability of relatives and inequality,
• Data and methods,
• Loss of relatives and grief, and
• Intergenerational relationships and caregiving.

The event fostered new academic connections between institutions and countries. It also promoted collaboration among experienced researchers, early-career scholars, and doctoral students. "We were pleasantly surprised by the high level of interest in the event, as well as by the energy and enthusiasm of the participants. This shows that kinship research is a dynamic and growing subfield of demography. We look forward to supporting this community further through the special issue in Demographic Research, which we are currently editing," Alburez-Gutierrez concluded.

Call for Papers

The announced special issue in the journal Demographic Research will provide a tangible platform for further developing and disseminating the research findings presented at the conference. All information regarding the call for papers is available here.

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