We study the structure and dynamics of populations and explore issues of political relevance, such as aging, fertility, and the redistribution of work over the life course, as well as digitization and the use of new data sources for the estimation of migration flows.
PHD | November 03, 2026
Congratulations, Ricarda Duerst!
Ricarda Duerst from the Laboratory of Population Health at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), successfully defended her doctoral thesis, “Learning from past mistakes: Uncertainty in demographic forecasting“, at the University of Helsinki. Her findings contribute to our understanding of forecasting problems and help researchers improve probabilistic demographic forecasts. More
November
04
Scientific Presentations
SeminarTalks@DCD
Roland Rau from the Laboratory of Statistical Demography and the University of Rostock gives a talk. More
All Events
Call for Research Contributions
Rethinking Fertility Relationally
Recommended Readings | October 27, 2026
Who You Know, and Where You Work: What Shapes Researchers’ First Career Moves
Introduction to our research groups
Population Health
November 01, 2026
New IUSSP Panel on Digital Demography, AI, and Open Science
We are happy to announce that the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) has created the Scientific Panel on Digital Demography, AI, and Open Science, which starts on November 1, 2026, and will run until November 2030. The panel is co-chaired by Aliakbar Akbaritabar from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) and the University of Rostock, and Francesco Rampazzo from the University of Manchester. More
Selected Publications
Mazzeo, F.; Hiekel, N.; Vitali, A.:
Joint pot or separate purses? Unpacking the cohabitation-marriage gap in income pooling across Europe Journal of Family Research 38, 23–46. (2026)
Alburez-Gutierrez, D.; Basellini, U.; Zagheni, E.:
When do mothers bury a child? Heterogeneity in the maternal age at offspring loss Population Studies 79:1, 45–57. (2025)
More Publications
Call for Papers
Special Collection | Demographic Research | Kinship Demography: Structures, Dynamics, and Inequalities
New Issue 3/2026 available | October 06, 2026
The Quarterly German Newsletter
Questions and Answers
Being a Researcher at the MPIDR
Working at MPIDR
Life & Research in Rostock
Career
Open Positions
Postdoc/Research Scientist in the Kinship Inequalities Research Group University of Hong Kong – Max Planck PhD Studentship in Population Studies Population and Social Data Science Summer Incubator Program More
A peer-reviewed, open-access journal of population sciences
Perspectives
Blog@MPIDR
Doctoral Program
International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science
Recap | October 28, 2026
Halfway through the BIOSFER Project
The BIOSFER project investigates how social, biological, and psychological factors influence emerging fertility patterns among young adults, as well as the extent to which the decline in fertility and its polarization can be attributed to social and biomedical factors. The project is a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), and Aarhus University (AU). In late September, all participants gathered at the Harnack House in Berlin. The BIOSFER 3.5 meeting marked the midpoint of the project. More