July 02, 2018 | Defo News

Childlessness, hospital stays, and life as a risk

© MPIDR

The new issue (No. 2/2018) of Demografische Forschung Aus Erster Hand, the popular science newsletter with latest research results from demography, has been released.

The Newsletter is available in German only.

"Demografische Forschung Aus Erster Hand" is a joint publication of the Max Planck Institute for demographic Research (MPIDR), the Rostocker Zentrum zur Erforschung des Demografischen Wandels (RZ), the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID), the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital and the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB).

The topics of the new issue are:

1. Two, one, or none!

Without children or just fewer siblings: Which of the two drove fertility decline?

(from the Vienna Institute of Demography)

When fewer children are born in a country, various processes may be behind it: Either the number of childless people is growing or the number of siblings is falling or both at the same time. Scientists from the Vienna Institute of Demography have examined the slump in birth rates, looking at a total of 32 countries in answer to this question.

2. Education and income protect against hospital stays

Socio-economic differences: Do they grow or shrink with age?

(from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research)

Those highly educated and on a high income spend fewer days in hospital. This is something well known. But whether these differences increase or decrease with age still is in dispute. A new study by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research shows that rise and fall both may hold.

3. Life as a risk

Likelihood of disease may rise with life expectancy gains

(from the Rostock Center for the Study of Demographic Change)

Statistics can be brutal at times. Just two options are available when calculating the risk of disease:  Illness or death. Only when someone died is it known for certain that the person will no longer fall ill. Conversely, this means: Those who live longer also have a longer risk of developing a condition. A new study now shows how both can be looked at in isolation.

The newsletter is released four times a year and is available electronically and as a printed version and is free of charge.

All past issues are available online on the Newsletter website. On the website you also have the possibility to subscribe to the Newsletter to get informed about the release of the new issues or to receive the printed versions by mail.

 

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The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock is one of the leading demographic research centers in the world. It's part of the Max Planck Society, the internationally renowned German research society.