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The Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics | CPop

CPop conducts innovative research on changes in survival, longevity, and population aging, including their policy, economic, and cultural implications.

New Master’s in Population Studies

News and events

Find out more about all our events, publications, vacancies and news and highlights from the centre. Search through all or select by research area.
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About the centre

CPop is an interdisciplinary cross-faculty collaboration between researchers drawn from demography, public health, biology, mathematics, economics, political science and humanities.

Research

CPop research spans a broad range of topics linked to ageing, longevity, and survival in human and non-human species. Learn more about CPop research areas and projects.

Our contribution to the sustainable developmental goals

Find out how interdisciplinary CPop research aligns with and contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Latest News

CPop

14.04.2023

New education programme will contribute to solving demographic challenges

The demographic development is crucial for how we organise society, and from next year a new master’s programme at SDU will educate demographers who can contribute to tackling the challenges. It will be Denmark’s only education programme in demography.

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CPop

06.02.2023

Life in a violent country can be years shorter and much less predictable – even for those not involved in conflict

How long people live in violent countries is less predictable and life expectancy for young people can be as much as 14 years shorter compared to peaceful countries, according to a new study today from an international team, led by Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics, University of Southern Denmark and Oxford University.

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CPop

11.10.2022

José Manuel Aburto awarded with a prestigious prize

José Manuel Aburto has been awarded with a Silver Medal of The Royal Danish Academy for his cutting-edge research into global health and inequality

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Obituary

03.04.2022

Obituary, James W. Vaupel, 02.05.1945 – 27.03.2022

With deep sadness, we announce that our founding Director, Prof Dr. James W. Vaupel, died on Sunday, March 27th, 2022 after an unexpected and short period of illness.

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CPop

17.03.2022

European Research Council Consolidator Grant goes to Annette Baudisch

Annette Baudisch receives a highly competitive ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council to explore and find new patterns in fertility data.

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CPop

01.10.2021

COVID-19 pandemic has led to great life expectancy losses in Europe and overseas but not in Denmark

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered life expectancy losses not seen since World War II in Western Europe and exceeded those observed around the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc in central and Eastern European countries. Nordic Europe, with the exception of Sweden, have seen less dramatic impact of COVID-19 however. A new comparative study by our researchers and co-authors from Oxford University documents the unprecedented life expectancy change by sex and broad age groups published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

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CPop

06.09.2021

New paper in PLOS ONE debunks our conventional beliefs about the primary role of welfare states in Europe

Welfare states mainly redistribute resources between age groups (from those who work to those who do not). Their impact on leveling off socio-economic status inequalities is much smaller in comparison. Pieter Vanhuysse and co-authors remind us that poverty alleviation and inequality mitigation potential is explicitly or implicitly part of most government interventions and that social policies should not be the sole ones that shoulder the blame for imperfect result.

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CPop

12.02.2021

The longevity revolution is going strong

New article about progress in longevity in the past and future. Our James Vaupel, Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher and Francisco Villavicencio address an essential question of how much can human lifespan be extended.

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CPop

03.08.2020

Diversification in causes of death in low-mortality countries

A new paper on variation in causes of death sheds further light on our understanding of population health and ageing. Just published in BMJ Global Health by our Marie-Pier Bergeron Boucher and José Manuel Aburto with Alyson van Raalte.

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CPop

22.06.2020

Understanding Physical and Cognitive Health Decline in the Oldest-Old Population

New paper by our Cosmo Strozza and Virginia Zarulli (with Viviana Egidi) on how demographics, socio-economic characteristics and one’s lifestyle affect changes in physical and cognitive health among the oldest old (aged 90+) published in The Journal of Aging Research.

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CPop

31.03.2020

European Research Council Advanced Grant goes to James Vaupel for Work on Lifespan Inequalities

James Vaupel from the University of Southern Denmark will develop cutting edge research on old-age mortality, lifespan inequalities, and retirement.

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CPop

30.03.2020

Welcome to our new PostDoc Morgane Tidiere

She is interested in sex-differences in survival across the tree of life and how to translate this knowledge into management of species. She also conducts projects on assessing management improvement across taxa in zoo populations.

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CPop

23.03.2020

Sex differences in adult lifespan and aging rates of mortality across wild mammals – New paper published in PNAS

In human populations, women consistently outlive men, which suggests profound biological foundations for sex differences in survival. Quantifying whether such sex differences are also pervasive in wild mammals is a crucial challenge in both evolutionary biology and biogerontology. By our Dalia A. Conde, Fernando Colchero and their co-authors

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CPop

09.03.2020

Our Rita da Silva was awarded a Villum International Postdoc grant

Our CPop affiliate researcher, Rita da Silva, was awarded a Villum International Postdoc grant of 2.5 million DKK to develop the project Submerging into demography: a new perspective to inform the conservation of aquatic species.

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CPop

02.03.2020

How long is life on pension for people from different socio-economic groups in Denmark? How large are the differences and can we expect them to widen or remain the same in the future?

Our new findings are highly relevant to the current debate about the fairness of the Danish pension system. We look at the differences in years spent in pension by five socio-economic groups today and the likely distribution in the future.

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CPop

25.02.2020

Dynamics of life expectancy and life span equality

As people live longer, ages at death are becoming more similar. This dual advance over the last two centuries, a central aim of public health policies, is a major achievement of modern civilization. Some recent exceptions to the joint rise of life expectancy and life span equality, however, make it difficult to determine the underlying causes of this relationship. Here, we develop a unifying framework to study life expectancy and life span equality over time, relying on concepts about the pace and shape of aging.

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CPop

16.01.2020

Progression of the smoking epidemic in high-income regions and its effects on male-female survival differences: a cohort by age analysis of 17 countries

We look at effects of smoking on mortality differences between men and women in high income countries over the period 1950 and 2015. The findings suggest that smoking is the major reason for sex differences in mortality in the last decades in high income countries and that about half of the sex differences in life expectancy can be attributed to smoking.

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CPop

16.01.2020

Sex differences in health and mortality by income and income changes

Investigation of mortality and hospitalizations of Danes born between 1935 and 1955 demonstrated that income at ages 55-59 was an important predictor of mortality, with increasing mortality for decreasing income quartile. Income trajectories as a proxy for change in social position have a larger influence on men’s than women’s health and mortality. Income in the late 50s is an important predictor of mortality, particularly for men.

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CPop

10.01.2020

The urbanization penalty, new research draws lessons about the impact of urbanization on mortality from the past

New paper from our Catalina Torres, Jim Oeppen and their co-author Vladimir Canudas-Romo in Population Studies

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CPop

11.12.2019

Why men die while women suffer

"Epidemographers and biological demographers at CPop collaborate to push the boundaries of our knowledge about the universality of the male-female health-survival paradox and the potential mechanisms underlying it."

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CPop

01.10.2019

Age-Independent Adult Mortality in a Long-Lived Herb

Relative to mammals and birds, little is known about the mortality trajectories of perennial plants, as there are few long-term demographic studies following multiple yearly cohorts from birth to death.

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CPop

26.06.2019

Silent Non-Exit and Broken Voice: Early Postcommunist Social Policies as Protest-Preempting Strategies

How can pension policies serve larger political causes? CPop Affiliate Pieter Vanhuysse on the strategic use of early retirement in Central and Eastern Europe

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CPop

15.04.2019

Understanding Extinction

Errors in generation time could underestimate extinction risk

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CPop

10.04.2019

Homicides have a devastating impact on reducing life expectancy in Latin America

Latin America accounts for around a third of the world’s homicides despite having just eight per cent of its population. The study shows that Honduran males are hardest hit, losing six years of life expectancy due to homicides when compared to developed countries.

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CPop

18.03.2019

Can we expect any time soon a break in the longest lifespan record set by Jeanne Calment? And what does it teach us about human longevity?

New paper from our Anthony Medford and Jim Vaupel in PlosOne

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CPop

04.02.2019

Upsurge in homicides decreases life expectancy and life span equality among males in Mexico according to new demographic research

New paper from our Jose Manuel Aburtoand his co-author Hiram Beltrán Sánchez in AJPH

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CPop

01.01.2019

Measuring Intergenerational Justice for Public Policy

New publication by CPop's very own Pieter Vanhuysse published in Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy.

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CPop

22.03.2018

Pro-Elderly Welfare States within Child-Oriented Societies

A new paper by CPop's very own Pieter Vanhuysse.

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CPop

01.01.0001

Interview with José Manuel Aburto

Yesterday, during a festive ceremony, José Manuel Aburto was awarded a Silver Medal by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. It is a prestigious prize for outstanding young researchers in Denmark awarded to one person every year.

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Workshop

01.01.0001

Population Estimates and the 2020 Census Round: Challenges and Lessons Learned in Times of Pandemic

International Workshop

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CPop

01.01.0001

Is plasticity of human lifespans advancing? New evidence from Denmark and Sweden

How long can we live? What is the plasticity of human lifespan? Questions asked by researchers and laymen alike. New research by Anthony Medford and co-authors published in renowned demographic journal brings mixed evidence from their study of centenarians of Denmark and Sweden.

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