Peter McDonald

Peter Francis McDonald (born 1946) is an Australian demographer and Emeritus Professor of Demography in the Crawford School of Public Policy of the Australian National University. He is known for his research on fertility transition and migration. He has researched extensively in Southeast Asia.

Early life and education McDonald graduated from St Patrick's College, Strathfield, in 1962.

Career McDonald has had a significant impact on demographic teaching, research and policy formulation. In 2016, then-Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, described McDonald as "arguably the world’s leading demographer".

He was President of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) from 2010 to 2013.

Awards and honours McDonald was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1998.

Together with Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi and Meimanat Hosseini-Chavoshi, McDonald won Iran's Book of the Year Award in 2010 for the book The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction.

In 2015, McDonald was awarded the Irene B. Taeuber Award by the Population Association of America. He received the IUSSP Laureate Award in 2022.

McDonald was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours. He was promoted to an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2024 Australia Day Honours for "distinguished service to demographic research, to policy development, and to professional associations".

Selected bibliography

Fertility

Population dynamics

Family demography