Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

With life expectancy increasing even as birth rates decline, the social and political consequences that demographic change entails are just some of the many issues addressed by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock. Further projects are dedicated to the genetic, medical and biological aspects of ageing, and to the transformation of the human lifecycle. Still other work deals with the stability of family patterns in Europe over the centuries, the correlation between politics and demographic change, and the issue of how institutional, political and economic changes in Europe have affected the population.

Contact

Konrad-Zuse-Straße 1
18057 Rostock
Phone: +49 381 2081-0
Fax: +49 381 2081-202
https://www.demogr.mpg.de

PhD opportunities

This institute has an International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS):

IMPRS for Population, Health and Data Science

In addition, there is the possibility of individual doctoral research. Please contact the directors or research group leaders at the Institute.

Mikko Myrskylä
Mikko Myrskylä

Department Population Health, Fertility and Well-Being

+49 381 2081-118
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Emilio Zagheni
Emilio Zagheni

Department Digital and Computational Demography

+49 381 2081-104
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James W. Vaupel, em.
James W. Vaupel, em.

Department Emeritus Group James W. Vaupel

+49 381 2081-103
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Scientific highlights 2020

Scientific highlights 2020

December 21, 2020

Ageing Astronomy Astrophysics Black Holes Brain Corona Evolutionary Biology Galaxies Genome Editing (Crispr) Language Materials Sciences (M&T) Neanderthals Neurobiology Quantum Physics Structural Biology Synthetic Biology

Many publications by Max Planck scientists in 2020 were of great social relevance or met with a great media response. We have selected 13 articles to present you with an overview of some noteworthy research of the year

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Extended family or childfree?

Extended family or childfree?

November 12, 2020

Social Sciences

Study pinpoints factors in fulfillment of early fertility desires of college-educated women in the U.S.

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Be generous, live longer

Be generous, live longer

September 01, 2020

Ageing Social Sciences

Resource sharing affects mortality worldwide

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Young, but vulnerable to Covid-19

Young, but vulnerable to Covid-19

June 24, 2020

Corona

Due to widespread pre-existing health conditions, Covid-19 may also affect young people in countries of the Global South.

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How Facebook is helping to measure migration

How Facebook is helping to measure migration

June 10, 2020

Migration

It is almost impossible to rapidly obtain figures on migration movement following natural disasters, especially using only traditional sources such as government statistics. Data from social networks such as Facebook is opening up completely new possibilities. This enabled us to track migration movements from Puerto Rico to the USA following Hurricane Maria in the autumn of 2017.

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At the Margins

MaxPlanckResearch 1/2018

It’s easy to overlook the marginalized. Social exclusion can have very different causes and consequences – also in the context of migration. Six Max Planck Institutes have now joined forces for a cross-institute project focusing on the topic. The project examines, among other things, the question of why immigrants often lose their good health. It explores what prompts Somalis to move from Europe to Kenya, and what consequences the deal between the EU and Turkey might have for the rights of asylum seekers in Greece. Their common aim is to uncover exclusion and develop fair rules to regulate migration.

A Hint of Immortality

MaxPlanckResearch - 3/2015 Focus: Aging

Eternal life lasts a very long time. Nevertheless, Ralf Schaible from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock can already affirm that the freshwater polyp Hydra comes quite close to this ideal. In a long-term experiment initiated by the institute’s Director James W. Vaupel, he and his colleagues investigate why, under certain circumstances, Hydra doesn’t age.

Getting More out of Life

MaxPlanckResearch 4/2012 Humanites & Social Sciences

Demographers are astounded at the way human mortality continues to drop. This trend started well over a hundred years ago. What used to be a statistical investigation of death rates has now developed into the science of longevity. This is what Jutta Gampe focuses on at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock.

Census at the Zoo

MaxPlanckResearch 3/2012 Biology & Medicine

Although everyone is talking about species protection, the lack of information about the species that need to be conserved can be quite shocking. To ensure that threatened animal species can be protected more effectively, the research team working with Dalia Amor Conde in the Conservation Demography Research Area of the Evolutionary Biodemography department headed by James W. Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock is using special methods to gather important data about the lives of endangered animals.

The Myth of the Healthy Migrant

MPR 4 /2011

The official statistics would have us believe that the "immigrant fate" guarantees a long life - and not only in Germany. According to official figures, the life expectancy of migrants far exceeds that of their fellow host-country citizens. Rembrandt Scholz, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, is investigating whether this is due to a healthy lifestyle or to errors in the recorded statistics.

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Tracing relocations from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria with Facebook data

2019 Zagheni, Emilio

Social and Behavioural Sciences

It is impossible to provide timely estimates of human migration flows after natural disasters by only using traditional data from statistical authorities. Facebook offers new opportunities as a complementary source of information. Emilio Zagheni and his collaborators traced relocation after Hurricane Maria 2017 from Puerto Rico to the US mainland and found return migration, too.

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Beyond the average: why we need to start measuring variation in ages at death

2018 van Raalte, Alyson A.

Social and Behavioural Sciences

Lifespan variation is a metric of mortality difference in age at death between individuals. With empirical examples from Germany, the USA, and Finland, we show how this variation is overlooked by monitoring metrics of average mortality levels, such as life expectancy. The latter captures the magnitude of survival gains; lifespan variation captures the equality in survival improvement. To gain a full picture of population health, we need to monitor both.

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Women live longer but men are healthier

2017 Oksuzyan, Anna

Social and Behavioural Sciences

There are gender differences in health. Although women on average live longer, they generally suffer from poorer health than men. Researcher Anna Oksuzyan investigates the reasons at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. What adds to the complexity of her research is that the differences between men and women vary across countries and cultures.

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Lifespans becoming more similar

2016 Colchero, Fernando; Rau, Roland; Scheuerlein, Alexander; Schwentker, Björn; Vaupel, James W.

Social and Behavioural Sciences

The higher the life expectancy in a society, the smaller the difference between the ages at which people will die. This relation can be described by a mathematical rule, as demographic data from many countries show. The relationship holds not only for very different human cultures and epochs, but similarly for non-human primates. Although separated by millions of years of evolution, for both humans and non-human primates the lives of females tend to be longer than the lives of males, suggesting deep evolutionary roots to the male disadvantage.  

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A long-term perspective on the evolution of social life-expectancy differentials

2015 Willführ, Kai P.; van Hedel, Karen; Myrskylä, Mikko

Social and Behavioural Sciences

In almost all welfare states, life expectancy has been rising across the social strata, but more rapidly so in the higher social classes, resulting in remarkable life-expectancy differentials between the lower and the higher social classes over time. Contributing factors are not only poorer life and working conditions of the lower social classes, but also different smoking, drinking, and dietary habits. Analyses of historical data indicate that social life-expectancy differentials emerged as late as in the 18th and 19th centuries.

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