Ole Hexel

Ole Hexel is a Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany, working within the Department of Digital and Computational Demography. His research bridges traditional demographic methods with digital and computational approaches to examine population dynamics in both physical and digital spaces.

Hexel earned his PhD in sociology from Northwestern University and the Centre de recherche sur les inégalités sociales at Sciences Po Paris. His doctoral research examined financial transfers from parents to adult children across twenty European countries using the Survey of Ageing, Health and Retirement in Europe dataset.

His research interests span digital demography, social media analysis, racial discrimination in hiring practices, and intergenerational wealth transfers. Hexel investigates how demographic patterns manifest in online platforms and traditional socioeconomic contexts, with particular focus on inequalities across racial, gender, and age dimensions. His work on Weibo's user demographics revealed striking patterns of young women (15-29 years) comprising the largest user group in highly urbanized areas with higher education levels and income.

Analysis of Hexel's publication record shows a consistent focus on demographic inequalities, with recent work shifting toward digital demography while maintaining his longstanding interest in racial discrimination and intergenerational transfers. His methodological approach combines large-scale data analysis with innovative computational techniques to examine demographic patterns in both traditional and digital contexts.

Hexel actively collaborates with researchers globally, including Wenqing Qian (PhD student at the University of Michigan) on China's digital landscape research. He has presented his work at major conferences including the Population Association of America's annual meeting, where he shared research on simulating inheritances using survey data and microsimulations.

Based in the Laboratory of Population Dynamics and Sustainable Well-Being, Hexel contributes to MPIDR's mission of advancing demographic science through innovative computational approaches and rigorous analysis of population dynamics in the digital age.