The Maryland Population Research Center (formerly the Center on Population, Gender and Social Inequality), was initially created in 1988 as a small, high quality "niche" center. For its first decade, the Center's membership consisted solely of social demographers from the University of Maryland's Department of Sociology. That Center greatly influenced the agenda for research on gender inequality and population processes and made significant contributions to the subspecialty of family and social demography.

With leadership from the Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, whose goal is to enhance interdisciplinary social science research on the campus, the Center undertook a major effort to broaden its multidisciplinary base and secure additional funds from the University for this growth.

In 1998, faculty members recognized that the University of Maryland's group of labor economists-who were engaged in empirical research on inequality, health, and population issues- had a shared research agenda with Maryland's group of demographers in the sociology department. The sociologists and economists joined together to secure a University commitment to the Center under a proposed "Demography of Inequality" (DOI) Initiative.

Based on this partnership, the University established population research as a priority area for growth by funding the DOI Initiative during the 1999-2000 academic year. This brought permanent funding to hire five new senior faculty members working in the population sciences and to support the infrastructure of the Maryland Population Research Center.

The Initiative that began as a joint project between the Departments of Sociology and Economics resulted in an unusually active, balanced, collaborative, and multidisciplinary partnership. And, after two years of expansion to include a broad, interdisciplinary group of researchers, a fresh, expansive vision of population research emerged - a vision that expanded the intellectual exchange well beyond its initial roots in sociology.

During the 1999-2002 academic years, the group hired new faculty and solidified the involvement of 38 Faculty Associates. These Faculty Associates with population research interests included not only those in Sociology and Economics, but also faculty from Anthropology, African American Studies, Criminology & Criminal Justice (DCCJ), Family Studies, Geography, and the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (JPSM). This new interdisciplinary faculty continued to focus on issues of social and economic inequality and issues of work and the family. However, the Center also expanded its work to include other important areas in population research, including health and disability over the life-course.

In Summer 2002, the Center was awarded an NICHD Population Research Infrastructure Program (R24) grant, making it one of only 15 population research centers nationally. In Fall 2002, the Center's Faculty Associates voted unanimously to change the Center's name to Maryland Population Research Center - a more inclusive and encompassing name that better represented the new, truly inter- and multidisciplinary focus of the Center.

Today the MPRC includes 55 Faculty Associates and Affiliates from over ten University departments, including most recently the School of Public Health. The cross-disciplinary research interests of our faculty allow the MPRC to make a unique contribution to the field of population studies. As the MPRC continues to grow and strengthen, so does its ability to develop young scholars and encourage scholars from allied fields to engage in population-related research through research support, training, and mentoring. By fostering collaboration among researchers and cultivation of new scholars, the MPRC ensures the continuation of innovative advancement in the field of population studies and a contribution to population-related policy in the years to come.