Joshua Wilde

Joshua Wilde serves as an Affiliate Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany, within the Laboratory of Fertility and Well-Being under the Social Demography research group led by Mikko Myrskylä.

His research spans demography and fertility studies with emphases on climate impacts (temperature shocks), pandemic effects (notably COVID-19), digital data applications, and economic demography. Key investigations include environmental influences on fertility, disaster-related demographic shifts, and forecasting methodologies using digital traces like Google search trends.

Recent publications reveal trends toward interdisciplinary analysis of pandemic-induced fertility changes ('baby bust'), climate-fertility linkages in Spain, and sub-Saharan African health interventions. His work consistently integrates demographic methods with economic frameworks to assess how environmental shocks and health crises reshape population dynamics.

As a core contributor to the Laboratory of Fertility and Well-Being, Wilde examines determinants of fertility and their implications for individual and societal well-being through empirical, data-driven approaches.