Maryland Population Research Center
Our Research
The Center supports the research of over 80 population scientists in colleges and departments from across the University of Maryland campus. In addition, affiliated researchers bring expertise from other organizations and institutions.
Our research is focused on four primary research areas that build on and extend the Center's historic strengths: 1) Gender, Family, and Social Change, including family formation, parenting across the life course, and the intersection of gender, work and family; 2) Health in Social Context, including multi-level influences on health, health over the life course, and health disparities; 3) Social and Economic Inequality, including individual and family inequalities and inequality at the level of institutions such as firms, schools, the criminal justice system, and the military; and 4) Migration and Immigrant Processes, including population and environment, population mobility, and neighborhood and community effects on health and development.
With funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, we specialize in research that supports the mission of the NICHD Population Dynamics Branch:
"PDB supports research and research training in demography, reproductive health, and population health.
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"In demography, the branch supports research on the scientific study of human populations, including: |
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| fertility |
nuptiality |
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| mortality and morbidity |
family demography |
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| migration |
population growth and decline |
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| population distribution |
causes and consequences of demographic change. |
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"In reproductive health, the branch supports behavioral and social science research on: |
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| Sexually transmitted diseases |
family planning |
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| HIV / AIDS |
infertility. |
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"In population health, the branch supports data collection and research on human health, productivity, behavior, and development at the population level, using such methods as: |
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| inferential statistics |
statistical modeling |
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| natural experiments |
policy experiments |
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| gene / environment interaction studies." |
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Affiliated Research Units
MPRC researchers make their academic home in one of 19 departments within 6 colleges and schools on the University of Maryland campus
- Department of African American and Africana Studies
- Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
- Department of Anthropology
- Department of Behavioral and Community Health
- Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Department of Economics
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
- Department of Family Science
- Department of Geographical Sciences
- Department of Global, Environmental and Occupational Health
- Department of Health Policy and Management
- Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology
- Department of Information Studies
- Department of Kinesiology
- Department of Psychology
- Department of Sociology
- Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy, and Management
- Joint Program in Survey Methodology
- School of Public Health
- School of Public Policy
University FAQ on International Collaboration
Gender, Family, and Social Change
Broad changes in recent decades, including economic restructuring and the stagnation of male wages, the gender revolution and the entry of women into labor force, and the aging of most populations, have transformed family life in ways that are still not well understood. MPRC researchers are leaders in the study of how these larger changes affect families and individuals in both the U.S. and in other countries. Many aspects of family life (how they form, their size, composition and stability, and inequalities in family experiences) have direct impact on larger demographic processes underlying the composition, geographic distribution, and growth of the population. Thus the study of family life is of central concern to population research.
Areas of focus include :
- Transition to adulthood and family formation
- Parenting over the life course
- Intersection between gender, work, and family
Social and Economic Inequality
Economic growth and development depend upon all citizens having the opportunity to maximize their potential, whether this is in terms of family formation, career path, or other long-term objective. MPRC researchers study inequalities by race / ethnicity, social class, age, gender, context, and nativity / immigration status in this and other signature themes.
MPRC research in this category is unique in its focus on key institutional contexts. Although population research usually focuses on the individual or family as the unit of analysis, from an ecological perspective, the individual and family are nested in a set of broader institutional contexts. Such institutions include prisons, the criminal justice system, health care systems, family and welfare policy, the labor market, the military, firms, schools, states, or countries as the context for population-related behaviors.
Areas of focus include :
- Individual and family inequality
- Schools and colleges
- Organizations and firms
- Criminal justice system
- Military
Examples of current projects in these areas are listed here.
Health in Social Context
The establishment on campus of a school of public health emphasizing the social and behavioral sciences provides the opportunity to integrate innovative basic social science approaches pioneered by MPRC scholars with outstanding research on improving health and reducing health disparities situated in a social and environmental context. Examples to date include the application of time use methods to obesity, the application of models of gender and parenthood to health, and the environmental context of physical activity.
Research in this area includes:
- determinants of infant, child, and youth health;
- health and aging; and
- impact of health care systems and social programs.
Some examples of current research in this area can be seen below.
Migration and Immigrant Processes
We are living in an era of enormous changes in internal and international migration worldwide. Understanding the origins of these population flows and their consequences for individual well-being constitutes one of the greatest challenges for scientific research in the coming years. MPRC researchers examine the social, economic and environmental causes of migration in a variety of national settings. They also consider the consequences of migration for immigrant families, and for individual health and mortality. Center research in this area is innovative for the use of new data sources to study migration processes in a wide range of national settings, and for exploring new pathways through which the immigration experience affects families and children. MPRC researchers are collecting data to study internal migration in India, and using longitudinal surveys to examine the economic and health consequences of migration in China and Mexico. They are also using restricted data linking US tax records to national surveys to analyze immigrants’ economic assimilation. Building on MPRC’s strength in the area of gender and family, researchers examine how the effect of immigration on children’s health and educational outcomes is mediated by its impact on family practices. The health of immigrant children and adults also builds from the MPRC’s strengths in understanding the broader social, economic and demographic contexts of health outcomes.