Population Studies Center

PSC Research Themes

The research of the PSC is ever-evolving. The scale of research ranges from macro to micro and reaches across many disciplines including economics, demography, and sociology. PSC scientists seek to understand the dynamics of human populations.

More Research Themes »

Research Theme: New Dynamics of Population Diversity

Building on PSC’s strengths in demography and the social study of race and ethnicity, plus Penn’s targeted institutional investment, to advance work on a central issue of the 21st Century: the relationship between health and inequality this research theme covers: population composition, migration, race and ethnic identity, and health and inequality.

Global Age Patterns of Under-Five Mortality (GAPU5M) project

Led by Michel Guillot, the GAPU5M project aims to improve our understanding of age patterns of under-5 mortality by providing detailed data for 25 countries from 1841 until 2016.
Read the project's latest research papers.

Download the Under-5 Mortality Database (U5MD)

GAPU5M Project Website »

Research Theme: Demography

PSC is anchored by a long, distinguished tradition and topics are a major source of intellectual identification across fields within the PSC, as researchers who are not trained in formal demography, but who are studying fertility, marriage, family etc. are attracted to population research. Research areas include: Fertility, Family planning, and Reproductive Health and Mortality.

Research Theme: Human Resources and Endowments

Addresses differences in health and social outcomes between and within populations that are functions of individual differences in the characteristics with which individuals are endowed, from genes and their phenotypic expression through family background characteristics.

International Population Research

PSC has a strong scientific and professional presence in international population research and is engageed to address leading challenges at the intersection of global demographic change and global health.

New Directions in Population Research

Two research areas connected to existing strengths, with sufficient critical mass (projects and interest) to merit special PSC support are: Population and the Environment &
“Big Data” and Population Science.

Pilar Gonalons-Pons Studies the Pandemic's impact on Women in the Workforce, Penn Today

Penn today highlights a new research being conducted by research associate Pilar Gonalons-Pons which focuses on the pandemic’s impact on paid and unpaid child care workers. “It might seem like the gender disparity has washed out and, in many areas, we have rebounded to pre-COVID levels. But the care economy has not yet recovered,” says Gonalons-Pons, who studies the intersection of gender, work, families, and public policy.Citations: "How have women in the workforce fared, three years into the pandemic?," Michele W. Berger, Penn Today, March 20, 2023.

--March 20, 2023

Samuel H. Preston examines the Associations between mortality from COVID-19 and other causes, Penn Today

Penn Today highlights a new study published in the journal Plos One co-authored by research associate Samuel H. Preston which performs a state-level analysis and examines the associations between mortality from COVID-19 and other causes. Citations: "States with high COVID-19 death rates also saw high mortality from other causes," Michele W. Berger, Penn Today, January 4, 2023.Preston SH, Luck AN, et al. "Associations between mortality from COVID-19 and other causes: A state-level analysis" PLOS ONE 18(3): e0281683, March 6, 2023.

--March 7, 2023

Quartet Pilot Project Competition

Request for Proposals: 2023-2024 Quartet Pilot Research Project Competition
Proposals are due on Monday, March 20, 2023

The Pension Research Council (PRC) and Boettner Center, the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE), the Population Aging Research Center (PARC), and the Population Studies Center (PSC) invite investigators to submit pilot proposals for the annual 2023-2024 Quartet Pilot Research Project competition. Pilot funds are targeted to support small-scale, innovative, or exploratory projects with a duration of one year. Funded projects must have the potential to generate academic publications and priority will be given to projects with potential to develop small-scale or preliminary research findings that would lead to applications for extramural funding, especially to the National Institutes of Health. Total costs are generally limited to $10,000-$20,000 per application; however, larger budgets may be considered if the project is well-suited for generating applications for NIH funding.

Click here to download the application materials and to read the RFP Guidelines.

Click here to read about former and currently funded projects.

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