Sha Jiang

Sha Jiang is a Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), working in the Department of Digital and Computational Demography and the Research Group of Kinship Inequalities. With an interdisciplinary background spanning sociology, demography, and ecology, Jiang's research focuses on understanding how population dynamics shape life chances and social inequalities in rapidly changing societies.

Education:

• Ph.D. from the Tuljapurkar Lab at Stanford University, specializing in demography and ecology
• M.A. in Sociology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology
• B.A. in Sociology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Sha Jiang's research program investigates how fertility decline, rising longevity, and educational expansion transform family and kinship networks, with significant implications for caregiving, bereavement, and intergenerational support systems. Jiang has developed innovative analytical frameworks including the Kin Dependency Ratio (KDR) and Lifetime Kin Overlap (LKO) to measure inequalities in access to family resources across different populations. Additional research examines how lifespan variability affects retirement decisions and social security systems, as well as how reproductive strategies influence population resilience across species.

Jiang's recent publications demonstrate a cohesive research agenda centered on kinship networks, aging populations, and demographic change. The work spans cross-national comparisons of care regimes, family caregiving challenges in China, pension claiming decisions under mortality uncertainty, and the structural transformations of kinship networks due to changing demographic rates. These studies employ rigorous demographic and statistical methods to address pressing social issues related to population aging and family dynamics.

As a Research Scientist at MPIDR, Jiang actively contributes to methodological advancements in demographic science, including providing valuable input for improving the DemoKin package for kinship network analysis. Jiang previously served as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Demography at the University of California, Berkeley, working on the CenSoc database with Joshua Goldstein's research group.

Jiang maintains active research collaborations with scholars including Diego Alburez-Gutierrez, Patrick H. Chung, Marcus J. Alexander, Han Liang, Elizabeth Zagheni, Wei Zuo, Zhiren Guo, and Shripad Tuljapurkar, reflecting Jiang's position at the forefront of demographic research on kinship and population dynamics.