Institut national d'études démographiques

The French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) is a French research institute specialized in demography and population studies in general.

INED was founded by virtue of the ministerial order no. 45-2499 of 24 October 1945. It was created on the initiative of the eminent paediatrician Robert Debré (1882-1978), who had submitted a report on the institutionalization of demography to the Comité français de la Libération nationale d'Alger in January 1944. To head the institute, General Charles de Gaulle appointed the statistician and economist Alfred Sauvy who, as advisor to the President of the Council, Paul Reynaud, had drafted the French government's first pro-natalist measures in 1938. INED moved into the premises of the Fondation française pour l'étude des problèmes humains headed by Dr Alexis Carrel, and employed around 7% of the foundation's personnel, which counted only a handful of demographers.

The 1945 order defined the missions of INED: "The role of INED is to study demographic problems in all their aspects. To this end, the Institute will collect the relevant documentation, conduct surveys, carry out experiments and follow experiments conducted abroad, study the material and moral means which may contribute to the quantitative growth of the population and its qualitative development, and ensure the dissemination of demographic knowledge".

Through a 1986 decree which superseded the 1945 order, INED became a public scientific and technological establishment (établissement public à caractère scientifique et technologique, EPST), with a legal status similar to that of other French public research bodies such as CNRS, INRA, INSERM and IRD (former ORSTOM). Previously attached to the various social ministries, INED's main supervisory authority was henceforth the Ministry of Education and Research (which pays the civil servant salaries at INED). INED is also attached to the ministries in charge of population questions and health statistics (social affairs, health or employment, depending on the government in power). With the decree of 1986, the pro-natalist objectives of 1945 disappeared. INED's new mission was to develop and disseminate demographic knowledge with the aim of fostering general economic and social progress. Under the decree of 1986, the missions of INED are defined as follows:

In 1941, Nobel Prize winner Alexis Carrel, an early proponent of eugenics and euthanasia, and a member of Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party (PPF), advocated for the creation of the Fondation Française pour l'Étude des Problèmes Humains (French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems), using connections to the Pétain cabinet. Charged with the "study, in all of its aspects, of measures aimed at safeguarding, improving and developing the French population in all of its activities", the Foundation was created by decree of the collaborationist Vichy regime in 1941, and Carrel appointed as 'regent'. The Foundation also had for some time as general secretary François Perroux.

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