Recent articles published in peer-reviewed journals
In press Du, W., M. Lerch, D. Beckendorff: The Impact of Migration on Age Structure Conducive to Human Development across the Urban Hierarchy, in Population and Development Review.
In press Lerch, M., D. Beckendorff, W. Du: The diffusion of international migration in cities and rural areas in developing countries, in International Migration Review.
Lerch, M., P. Wanner (2025): Rising international migration of the highly skilled transforms demographic and geographic patterns of flows in high-income countries – The case of Switzerland, 1966-2019, in International Migration 63(4), e70057. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imig.70057
Lerch, M., W. Du, D. Beckendorff (2025): Internal migration over the course of urbanization in developing countries, in Population and Development Review, 51(3), 1022-1046. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/padr.70014
Lerch, M. (2024): Societal upheaval and the contraceptive transition in developing countries, in Population and Development Review, 50(S2), 625-647. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/padr.12663
Lerch, M. (2023): The end of urban sprawl? Internal migration across the rural-urban continuum in Switzerland 1966-2018, in Population, Space and Place, 29(1), e2621. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/psp.2621
Mühlichen, M., M. Lerch, et al. (2023): Different health systems – Different mortality outcomes? Regional disparities in avoidable mortality across German-speaking Europe, 1992–2019, in Social Science and Medicine 329, 115976 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623003337?via%3Dihub
Pagani A., D. Christie, V. Bourdon et al. (2023): Housing, street and health: a new systemic research framework, in Buildings & Cities, 4(1), 629–649. https://journal-buildingscities.org/articles/10.5334/bc.298
Kaiser, J., M. Lerch (2022): Sedimentary faecal lipids as indicators of Baltic Sea sewage pollution and population growth since 1860 AD, in Environmental Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112305
Todd, N., M. Lerch (2021): Socioeconomic development predicts a weaker contraceptive effect of breastfeeding, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 118 (29) e2025348118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2025348118
Lerch, M. (2020): International Migration and City Growth in the Global South: An Analysis of IPUMS Data for Seven Countries, 1992-2013, in Population and Development Review 46(3): 557-582. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12344
Lerch, M., T. Spoorenberg (2020): The dynamics of birth postponement and limitation over the course of the fertility transition in sub-Saharan Africa, in Demographic Research 40(30): 827-858. https://dx.doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2020.42.30
Lerch, M. (2019): Fertility decline in urban and rural areas of the developing world, Population and Development Review, 45(2), 301-320, (10% most downloaded articles in 2018-2019,) https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12220
Lerch, M. (2019): Regional variation in the rural-urban fertility gradient in the developing world, in PLoS ONE 14(7): e0219624. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219624
Lerch, M. (2018): Marriage and fertility change during crisis and societal consolidation in the Western Balkans, Population Studies 71(2), 217-234. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2017.1412492
Lerch, M., A. Spoerri, D. Jasilionis and F. Viciana (2017): On the plausibility of socioeconomic gradients in mortality estimated from linked data: a demographic approach, Population Health Metrics 15(26). https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12963-017-0143-3
Lerch, M., M. Oris and P. Wanner (2017): Periurbanisation and the urban mortality gradient in Switzerland, 1968-2008, Population-E 72(1), 93-122, https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-population-2017-1-page-93.html
Other publications
In press Beckendorff, D., W. Du, M. Lerch : « Immigration internationale et ségrégation résidentielle à Bruxelles, Genève, Hambourg et Turin », in V. Kaufmann, Y. Pedrazzini et L. Palanché (Eds.) : Accueillir les différences dans la ville, p. 65-74.
Lerch, M., V. Kaufmann, L. Pattaroni et al. (2024): Projections d’effectifs scolaires 2021-2050 et le devenir de l’école genevoise à l’horizon 2025 en lien avec la planification des besoins en bâtimens scolaires, Rapport de recherche mandaté par le Département de l’instruction publique, de la formation et de la jeunesse (DIP), Canton de Genève.
Lerch, M. (2021): Pandemie und Demografie im Kanton Zürich [Pandemic and demography in the canton of Zurich], Blog, Statistical Office of the Canton Zurich (CH), https://www.zh.ch/de/news-uebersicht/mitteilungen/2021/politik-staat/statistik/pandemie-und-demografie.html
Lerch, M. (2021): Immer attraktiver für Hochausgebildete: Der Kanton Zürich im Geflecht der Wanderungen innerhalb der Schweiz [Increasingly attractive for the highly skilled: the canton of Zurich in the internal migration context of Switzerland], Statistik.Info 2021/03, https://www.web.statistik.zh.ch/ogd/daten/ressourcen/KTZH_00000727_00001849.pdf
Lerch, M. (2020): The emergence and diffusion of birth limitation in urban areas of developing countries, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2020-014, https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2020-014.pdf
Wanner P., M. Lerch and E. Galanxhi (2018): « Dynamique spatiale dans les régions albanaises. Programme de développement des statistiques démographiques » [Spatial dynamics in Albanian regions. A program for the development of demographic statistics], in B. Kotzamanis, A. Parant (Eds.): Regards sur la Population de l’Europe du Sud-Est, Athens: Demobalk, p. 105-113.
Lerch, M. and M. Oris (2018): “Mortality during heat episodes in Switzerland: A story of vulnerability”, in P. Puschmann & T. Riswick (Eds.): Building Bridges – Scholars, History and Historical Demography, p. 622-642.
Lerch, M. (2017): International migration and city growth, United Nations Population Division Technical Paper 2017/10, New York: United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/technical/TP2017-10.pdf