News

September 25, 2025 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “Trends in internal migration over the course of urbanization in developing countries” at the United Nations Population Division, New York on October 9.

June 1, 2025 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “Periurbanisation and the changing geography of mortality in Switzerland 1966-2019” at the Department of Epidemiology and Heath Systems, University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland on June 10.

March 1, 2024 – Dorothee Beckendorff will contribute to the International Population Conference in Brisbane, Australia on July 12-18, 2025:

  • Unequal Journeys: Unpacking the Differential Impact of Development on Internal
    Migration Across Educational Groups

February 1, 2025 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “Educational selection of internal migration over the urbanization process in developing countries” at the Research Hub of Population Studies, University of Hong Kong on February 28.

December 20, 2024 – Dorothee Beckendorff, Wenxiu Du and Seonga Cho will contribute to the ETH Domain Conference “Social Sciences on Environment, Technology & Sustainability” in Zurich, Switzerland on January 27.

  • Unequal Journeys: Unpacking the Differential Impact of Development on Internal
    Migration Across Educational Groups
  • The Impact of Migration on Age Structure Conducive to Human Development across the Urban Hierarchy
  • The impact of amenity facilities in early career population migration pattern

December 20, 2024 – Dorothee Beckendorff will contribute to the Zurich Population Research Conference in Zurich, Switzerland on January 20-21.

  • Human development, basic needs and city out-migration: Subnational perspectives on the mobility transition

December 20, 2024 – Dorothee Beckendorff will present a poster at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America in Washington DC, USA on April 10-12, 2025:

  • Unequal Journeys: Unpacking the Differential Impact of Development on Internal
    Migration Across Educational Groups

September 2, 2024 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “Towards a better understanding of
urban demography” at the Department of Demography, University of Vienna on September 30.

September 1, 2024 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “Changements démographiques et croissance des centres-villes en Suisse” at the Cantonal Bank of Geneva Conference ‘L’essentiel de la finance’ on September 8.

August 1, 2024 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “Migrations et urbanisation en Suisse” at the Summer University of the Socialist Party in Geneva, Switzerland on August 24.

June 1, 2024 – We are happy to welcome Seonga Cho as a new Postdoctoral researcher at URBDEMO! He joined us from the University of California, Santa Barbara and will work on the Blue City project.

February 23, 2024 – Dorothee Beckendorff and Wenxiu Du will contribute to the International Conference on Population Geographies in Belfast, Northern Ireland on July 1-3, 2024:

  • Human development, basic needs and city out-migration: Subnational perspectives on the mobility transition
  • Functional Urban Areas – Application of the concept on traditional longitudinal data for intra- and inter- city analysis

February 20, 2024 – Mathias Lerch will act as a discussant in the Inauguration of a new Life Sciences campus building at Biopôle, Lausanne on February 27.

February 20, 2024 – Dorothee Beckendorff will contribute to the International Geographical Congress in Dublin, Ireland on August 24-29, 2024:

  • Human development, basic needs and city out-migration: Subnational perspectives on the mobility transition

November 20, 2023 – Mathias Lerch will contribute to the Expert Meeting of the Directorate E – Space, Security and Migration at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium on December 13.

November 15, 2023 – Wenxiu Du and Mathias Lerch will contribute to the European Population Conference in Edinburgh, UK on April 17-20, 2024:

  • Functional Urban Areas – Application of the Concept on Traditional Longitudinal Data for Intra- and Inter-City Analysis
  • The Diffusion of Internal Migration across the Urban Hierarchy in Developing Countries

November 15, 2023 – Wenxiu Du will contribute to the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America in Columbus, Ohio, USA on April 17-20, 2024:

  • Redistibutive Effects of Migration on Educational Composition across Urban Hierarchy

October 15, 2023 – Wenxiu Du will act as a discussant at the IEEE Workshop on Electronics for mitigating Climate Change in the session Climate Change, Migration and Geography in Oran, Algeria on November 27-28.

August 15, 2023 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “The Demography of Urban Living” at the Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung, Wiesbaden (Germany) on September 21.

July 15, 2023 – Wenxiu Du will contribute to the Wittgenstein Conference in Vienna, Austria on December 6-7, 2023:

  • Heterogeneity in Internal Migration between Differentiated Functional Urban Areas

March 20, 2023 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “Migration, urban sprawl and
the environment in Switzerland 1966-2018″ at the Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna on April 6.

November 24, 2022 – Dorothee Beckendorff will contribute to the Young Demographers Conference in Prague, Czechia on February 8-10 2023:

  • Who gets to go and who must stay? Examining the links between climate change induced migration and educational attainment in Chile

November 11, 2022 – Dorothee Beckendorff and Wenxiu Du will contribute to the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America in New Orleans, USA on April 12-15, 2023:

  • Who has to go and who gets to stay? Examining the links between climate change induced migration and educational attainment in Chile
  • How did Covid-19 shift time use patterns in Switzerland?

September 18, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will give two talks on “Interlinkages between internal and international migration” at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), Esch/Alzette on November 2 and on “Migration and demography in sending and receiving countries” at the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg on November 3.

September 16, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will contribute to the International Conference on Family Planning in Pattaya City, Thailand, on November 14-17 2022:

  • Social upheavals and the contraceptive transition in developing countries

September 15, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will give a talk on “Periurbanisation and re-urbanisation over the life course in Switzerland, 1966-2018” at the LINES/LIVES seminar of the University of Lausanne, on September 20.

July 15, 2022 – We are happy to welcome Dorothee Beckendorff as a new PhD researcher at URBDEMO! She joined us from the European Doctoral School of Demography in Barcelona and will work on the ERC project on migration in developing countries’ cities.

July 1, 2022 – We are happy to welcome Wenxiu Du as a new PhD researcher at URBDEMO! He joined us from the Imperial College London and will work on the ERC project on migration in developing countries’ cities.

June 15, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will act as a discussant in the session “Healthy Habitats – 21st century cities and health: a contradiction?” at the EPFL Habitat Research Center Day 2022, on July 12.

June 1, 2002 – Mathias Lerch will contribute to the IUSSP Panel Conference “Contraceptive Transition Theories: Models for Contemporary Patterns of Use” in Funchal, Madeira, 12-15 July 2022:

  • Contraceptive use in contexts of social upheaval

April 22, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will contribute to the European Population Conference 2022 on 29 June – 2 July in Groningen (Netherlands):

  • Changing patterns of international migration to high-income countries: a case study of Switzerland, 1966-2018, Session “Trends and patterns in international migration”

  • Avoidable mortality in German-speaking countries: Regional disparities in amenable and preventable causes of death in Austria, Germany and Switzerland (with Michael Muehlichen & Markus Sauerberg)

  • Lerch will also act as the Chair of the Session 603 “Drivers on international migration”

February 21, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will contribute to the Population Association of America Annual Meeting 2022 on April 6-9 in Atlanta (Georgia):

  • The end of urban sprawl? A Swiss assessment from 1966 to 2018, Session 1109 – “Urbanization and Population Redistribution”
  • Pandemic Babies? The Fertility Response to the First Covid-19 Wave Across European Regions (with Nathalie Nietsche, MPIDR et al.), Session 809 – “Fertility and COVID-19 in the USA, Europe, and Latin America”

February 1, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will present his research during the HRC Open field lunch “Healthy Habitat” at the EPFL on March 24 2022 in Lausanne:

  • “Urban sprawl and the changing geography of mortality in Switzerland, 1966-2018”

January 14, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will present his research in Binder-Seminar of the Laboratory for Human-Environment Relations in Urban Systems at the EPFL on February 9 2022 in Lausanne:

  • “Demographic challenges in cities across the development spectrum”

January 10, 2022 – Mathias Lerch will present his research in the Seminar of the Laboratory of Geographic Information System at the EPFL on January 26 2022 in Lausanne:

  • “Population challenges in cities of the Global North and South”

November 1, 2021 – Mathias Lerch will contribute to the quadriennal International Population Conference (IPC) on 5-10 December 2021 in Hyderabad (India), organized by the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) as a virtual event this year:

The End of Urban Sprawl? A Swiss Assessment from 1966 to 2018, presented in Session 38 “New Methods and Measures in Urbanization”, Monday, December 6 / 19:00 – 20:30 (https://ipc2021.popconf.org/sessions/38)

  • Future levels of fertility in sub-Saharan Africa: Parity-based projections (with Thomas Spoorenberg), presented in Session 88 “Demographic Trends: Estimates and Projections”, Tuesday, December 7 / 23:00 – 0:30 (https://ipc2021.popconf.org/sessions/88)
  •  Socioeconomic development predicts a weaker contraceptive effect of breastfeeding (with Nicolas Todd), presented in Session 16 “Fertility: Preferences and Intentions, Monday, December 6 / 11:00 – 12:30 (https://ipc2021.popconf.org/sessions/16)
  • Avoidable mortality in German-speaking countries: Regional disparities in amenable and preventable causes of death in Austria, Germany and Switzerland (with Michael Muehlichen & Markus Sauerberg), presented in Poster-Session 15, Wednesday, December 8 / 18:00 – 19:30 (https://ipc2021.popconf.org/sessions/P15#10)
  • Lerch will also act as the Chair of the Session 132 “The Determinants of Urban Inequality”, Wednesday, December 8 / 21:00 – 22:30 (https://ipc2021.popconf.org/sessions/132)

October 20, 2021 – Mathias Lerch will present his research in the Seminar Series of the Laboratory of Urban Sociology at the EPFL, on November 9 2021, at 12h30 – 14h in room GC B2 424:

  • “City growth and migration in the global South”

October 15, 2021 – Welcome to our two new student assistants Sandro Barissi Marin et Kamalesh Kumar Kanakaraj !

October 1st, 2021 – Mathias Lerch will present his research in the Seminar Series of the Institute of Demography and Socioeconomy at the University of Geneva, Tuesday Octobre 5 2021, 16h15 – 17h, room 4275 Uni MAIL

  • “International Migration and Urban Growth in Developing Countries”