Peter McDonald (demographer)

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 researched extensively in Southeast Asia.

In 2016, McDonald was appointed Professor of Demography and head of the Demography Unit within the Centre for Health Policy at the University of Melbourne.

Career
McDonald had a significant impact on demographic teaching, research and policy formulation and received the Population Association of America's Irene B. Taeuber Award in 2015. In 2013, then-Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, described McDonald as "arguably the world’s leading demographer". McDonald won Iran's Book of the Year Award for the book The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction (with Meimanat Hosseini-Chavoshi and Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi).

He was President of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) for the years, 2010-2013

McDonald was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours. He was promoted to 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".