About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Comparative Population Studies (CPoS) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal of population studies and demography. CPoS is an online open-access journal (CC BY-SA) and publishes articles on a continuous rolling basis. Publishing in CPoS is completely free of charge, including colour figures. The journal offers free language editing and high-quality layout support for accepted manuscripts.

CPoS welcomes submissions in two categories: research articles (traditional journal papers) and demographic trends around the globe (shorter papers presenting new descriptive findings). Topics published in CPoS include, but are not limited to: family and fertility, ageing and mortality, health and wellbeing, migration and mobility, and population structure and development. 

CPoS has a focus on comparative research but we also welcome submissions without a comparative focus that address a research question with high relevance for population studies. Nevertheless, we have a special interest in publishing comparative studies and comparative research methods. We believe the opportunity for comparative studies in the sense of cross-regional comparisons has never been greater, since harmonized data for comparisons become increasingly available (IPUMS, Gateway to Global Aging Data, DHS, GGS, Share, etc.). At the same time comparisons can mean a lot: comparisons across time, across countries, across the life course, across social and demographic groups, etc. We aim to promote all of these different kinds of comparisons and explicitly want to encourage authors to strengthen the comparative features of their work in their submission to CPoS.

CPoS publishes 1-2 special issues per year coordinated by guest editors. If you are interested in submitting a proposal for a special issue, please contact the Managing Editor.

Formerly known as Zeitschrift für Bevölkerungswissenschaft (1975 - 2010), CPoS is published by the German Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) since 2010. The journal has an international scientific advisory board that meets once a year to give strategic advice.

Please go to submissions for more information on the submission process.

Peer Review Process

Each submitted manuscript will undergo a standard double blind peer review process that evaluates the submission based on the following criteria:

  • the originality of its contribution to the interdisciplinary field of population studies and demography;
  • the soundness of its theory and methodology given the topic;
  • the coherence of its analysis;
  • its fit with the journal’s scope;
  • its ability to communicate to readers (grammar and style).

We aim for a turn-around time of 6-12 months from submission to online publication.

For authors who are requested by reviewers or editors to revise and resubmit their article it is mandatory to resubmit the article together with a documentation of the changes made according to the recommendations of reviewers or editors and to explain these changes. This statement will be provided to the reviewer together with the resubmitted article. Reviewers will receive all previous reviews in order to re-review resubmitted papers. Review results will be made available to the authors anonymously.

Decisions on the acceptance of papers, revision of contributions, additional reviews or re-reviews and copy editing are made by the managing editors in agreement with the publisher.

Editorial Policy

By submitting a contribution, the author(s) declare(s) that the article has – in full or in parts – not been published previously. All manuscripts will undergo a plagiarism check based on Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate. CPoS accepts manuscripts which have been published as a working paper or on an archiving platform. The author(s) further declare(s) that the copyright lies with the author(s) and that all copyright-protected material is used with full consent of the copyright holder and is properly cited.

Open Access

CPoS is published on a continuous rolling basis. Articles are freely accessible online. Publication is free of charge for authors. Articles finally approved by the corresponding author and the managing editors will be published online. An annual printed full colour version is available for cooperating institutions and libraries and will be distributed at the beginning of the following year.

Libraries are encouraged to subscribe to the electronic version of CPoS free of charge and may hold local copies of the journal in their databases. Archive copies of the journal in print and electronic form are held by the German National Library. CPoS holds an ISSN for its electronic (1869-8999) and print (1869-8980) editions. Each article is identified by a URN identifier for long-term accessibility distributed by the German National Library and an additional DOI identifier.

From volume 2016 onwards, CPoS is published under a Creative Commons BY-SA license. The copyright of volumes 2015 and older remains with the Federal Institute for Population Research. Authors of those articles are granted permission to re-publish or re-print the article or parts of it, provided that the initial publication in CPoS is properly acknowledged.