Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

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.

New Faces at the MPIDR | November 13, 2026

Welcome, Paul Bachmann!

The Laboratory of Migration and Mobility welcomes Paul Bachmann as its new PhD student. Before joining the MPIDR Paul successfully finished his masters’ at the Free University of Berlin. During his PhD, he intends to explore how the global science system, including educational institutions, border and visa regimes, and political conditions, functions as a sorting machine for migration. He is particularly interested in how structural selection interacts with individual factors such as professional networks and personal aspirations.  More

November

16

Scientific Presentations

Talks@BIOSFER

Matthew J. Salganik of the Princeton University will give a guest talk. The session will address predictability and its limits in social outcomes, drawing on large-scale research on the challenges of forecasting individual life trajectories.  More

All Events

Call for Research Contributions

Rethinking Fertility Relationally

Introduction to our research groups

Population Dynamics and Sustainable Well-Being

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

Selected Publications

Basellini, U.:

Open science practices in demographic research: an appraisal   Demographic Research 50:43, 1265–1280. (2024)

Klein, J. D.; Weber, I. G.; Zagheni, E.:

Stop, in the name of COVID! Using social media data to estimate the effects of COVID-19-related travel restrictions on migration   Demography 61:2, 493–511. (2024)

More Publications

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

Perspectives

Blog@MPIDR

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

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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.