Experiences in families play key roles in determining socioeconomic opportunities, education outcomes, health, and wellbeing around the globe. PSTC works to improve the welfare of children and families through the study of marriage, cohabitation, and fertility; childcare, adoption, and elder care; the impacts of education access and experience; intergenerational inequality; access to work; and life course health.

As some of the world's leading experts in migration and urbanization, our researchers are working to use new data and methods to understand the roles of migration and urbanization in climate change, development, health and disease, social movements, and other critical issues, addressing these challenges with extraordinary geographic and disciplinary reach.

Our researchers are working to build a deep understanding of the bidirectional causal relationships between population change and environmental change, through developing innovative measures and models of environmental change, and working with novel sources of data to develop solutions for a more sustainable world.

Economic development disrupts demographics, altering familial relationships and societal networks. Conversely, demographic shifts influence development. Population science addressing these intricacies ensures development fosters sustained, equitable welfare enhancement, including health and wellbeing. PSTC scholarship in this area is distinctive in its disciplinary and geographic breadth, and diverse methodologies.

More than 30 years into the AIDS epidemic and AIDS remains the leading cause of death among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. In the U.S., social inequalities are reflected in significant disparities in maternal mortality. The PSTC engages issues of reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and gender with collaborations that emphasize population science and span anthropology, economics, sociology, medicine, and public health.