Author guidelines

Original work

Submissions should contain original research, that has not been published before, has not been and will not be submitted for review to another journal while under review by the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research.

Submissions that have been published as working papers, in conference proceedings or which have been uploaded to institutional or public pre-print repositories are accepted, but it should be indicated in a note to the editors at submission.

Permissions

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) and provide evidence of such permission when submitting their work.

Cover page

Each submission has to contain a cover page specifying

• Title of submission
• Names of all authors (main author first), institutional affiliation, postal address and email and ORCID iD, if available
• Abstract (about 150 words)
• Keywords (4-6)
• Disclosure of competing or conflict of interests
• Compliance with ethical standards
• Sources of funding, if any
• Acknowledgements, if any

Language and style

Contributions for the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research should be in English (preferably in British English).

Authors are encouraged to write concisely and to have their contribution checked for grammar and spelling. Poorly written contributions will not be accepted.

Length of manuscript

The Vienna Yearbook of Population Research does not impose strict restrictions on the length of contributions. However, we recommend that submitted manuscripts do not exceed 10,000 words.

Formatting

First submissions do not have to adhere to our guidelines on the final manuscript layout. All pages must be typed double-spaced (11 or 12 point type size), with margins allowing for editor’s notes.

Submissions can be in any common format such as MS-Word or as LaTeX files. For submissions in LaTeX, please provide a backup PDF file; changes by the copy editor will be made in a Word copy of the PDF file in order to make ‘tracked changes’ visible to the authors — who will have to integrate them into the LaTeX file, if applicable. Please inquire with the managing editor about other formats if necessary.

Peer review

Submitted manuscripts (except invited Debate contributions) are first assessed by the editors or guest editors, who desk reject submissions which do not fit the topic of the current special issue or do not meet the quality criteria of the journal. The remaining submissions are subject to double-blind peer review by at least two reviewers who are not based at the same institution as the authors, have not recently collaborated with the authors and do not have other potential conflict of interest. In exceptional cases, one of the editors may serve as an additional reviewer, but she/he is then no longer included in the editorial decision process. The names of reviewers are not disclosed to the authors of the manuscript under review.

The reviewing process usually takes up to three months and includes the use of the plagiarism detection and other appropriate checks as required (see below). The editors rely heavily on the judgments of the reviewers, although they are not bound by them and can summarise, restate, or elaborate the reviewers’ assessments in their recommendations to authors. The authors are informed of the board’s decision. In case of rejection or request for modifications, the authors receive an explanation or a specification of the modifications suggested by the reviewers and editors. Resubmissions should address comments provided by the reviewers and the editors. The editors may contact initial reviewers or contact new external reviewers to assess resubmissions if necessary.

Plagiarism is not accepted by the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research and will be considered as academic misconduct. Please see the definition of plagiarism in the VYPR Editorial Policies & Ethics Guidelines (https://viennayearbook.org/editorial-policy-publication-ethics).

The Vienna Yearbook of Population Research screens all submitted manuscripts using plagiarism detection software, PlagScan (https://www.plagscan.com) and iThenticate (https://ithenticate.com), and other appropriate checks as required.

In cases of suspected plagiarism, the VYPR will follow the COPE guidelines, which may result in the rejection of the submitted manuscript during peer review, or the correction or retraction of the published article, as appropriate.

Structure of final manuscripts

Title page:

• Title of contribution
• Authors’ names and institutional affiliations:
  • The main author is listed first.
  • Add separate footnote for each institutional affiliation incl. city and country of the institution.
  • Indicate the corresponding author and include his/her e-mail address.

Abstract and keywords:

• The abstract should summarise the contents and conclusions of the article in about 150 words.
• Add 4–6 keywords.

Within the main text use short textual section heading and max. three levels of subsection headings and number these in Arabic as follows: 1 Sections; 1.1 Sub-sections; and 1.1.1 Sub-subsections. Please use sentence case capitalisation for the heading.

Insert a description of supplementary files, if any, right after the main text. Any supplementary material will be published in separate online documents. See the formatting rules for supplementary materials at the end of this document.

Next, add any Acknowledgements including funding information, if applicable.

Insert a separate section entitle ORCID iDs before the References including the author’s names as well as their ORCID iDs, if available.

Layout of final manuscripts

Language and style

Use British English spelling, e.g. labour, modelling, centred, ageing, analyse.

• Explain all acronyms and abbreviations when they first appear in your text, such as “TFR (period total fertility rate)”.
• Please use sentence case capitalisation in headings and subheadings, tables and figures, i.e. only the first word is capitalised (and of course proper nouns).

• Italicise foreign-language phrases (but not “et al.”)
• Use footnotes that appear on the bottom of a given page.
• In geographical references, the points of the compass are typically not capitalised except when part of a proper name, e.g. South Africa but southern Africa. Capitalise the term EU Member States.
• Punctuation
• No comma after (but usually before) “i.e.” and “e.g.”
• No comma or dot is used as a thousands separator.
• No comma in enumerations before the final “and/or/nor” and also before “etc.”, except to avoid ambiguity
• Do not use the ampersand to replace “and” except when part of a proper name.
• Footnote numbers (superscripts) come after punctuation marks,¹ not before².
• Dates take the format “day month year” with no commas (20 December 2012).

Mathematical notation

• Displayed equations should be numbered consecutively, with the number set flush right and enclosed in parentheses, e.g.:
  \[\begin{matrix} \frac{\partial P}{\partial t} + \frac{\partial P}{\partial a} + \mu\left( a \right)P = \alpha\ \left( 1 \right) \\ \end{matrix}\]

• Short expressions should be run on with the text unless they will be referenced elsewhere in the text.
• Non-Greek variables should be italicized. Vectors and matrices should be shown in bold.
• Use a multiplication symbol (×) or dot (·) rather than an asterisk to indicate multiplication.
• Theorems, lemmas, definitions, etc. are set on a separate paragraph, with one line extra space above and below. They are to be numbered consecutively within the contribution. The citation command can be used to cross-link for theorem declaration, e.g. “see Theorem 1 and Lemma 1”.
• Proofs. Proofs should end with a box. □

Figures and illustrations

Figures and illustrations should be numbered according to their sequence in the text. They should be inserted at the nearest appropriate point following their first reference in the text or their position clearly marked, e.g. “[Figure 5 about here]”. The format of the Yearbook allows a maximum size of 12.8 by 20.5 cm.

• Please make sure that the size and the layout within figures is consistent across graphs, and also among similar figures in the manuscript.
• Please design more complex figures in way, that allows for clarity and readability when printing (max. two columns of graphs, for more columns of graphs consider rearranging or splitting the figure.)
• Supply all figures in separate graphic files. Please save your graphical material in vector-based graphic files (e.g. EPS files) or in high-quality resolution graphic files with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Please do not convert graphic files.
• MS Excel graphics including source data are also accepted.
• Colour figures are accepted, but take care of colourblind friendliness.
• Different lines, bars, and other features in the graphs should be clearly distinguishable in black and white print.

Each illustration should have a self-explanatory caption and an appropriate description of the x and y-axes. The caption must be placed above the figure. Notes and data source lists are aligned left and listed below each figure when appropriate.

Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures (or tables) that have been previously published elsewhere. Permission should be given in the figure legend, and the original source should be included in the reference list.

Figure 1 Total fertility rate (TFR) for selected countries from 1990 to latest year available.

Source: Human Fertility Database (HFD, 2024)

Tables

Tables should be numbered according to their sequence in the text and should be inserted at the nearest appropriate point following their first reference in the text (or their position clearly marked, e.g. “[Table 3 about here]”) and each table then provided on a separate sheet of paper.

Tables should have self-explanatory captions. The tables should fit the format of the Yearbook which allows maximum table size of 12.8 by 20.5 cm and preferably should not exceed one page of the Yearbook. Notes and data source lists are aligned left and listed below each table when appropriate. Our preferred table layout is illustrated below:

Table 1 Marriage and divorce rates among women in countries A and B in t and t+5 (per thousand)

	Country A		Country B
	Marriage rates	Divorce rates	Marriage rates	Divorce rates
t	25	12	18	12
t+5	23	14	19	16

Note: Data for t+5 are preliminary estimates.

Sources: Carrot (2002) for marriage rates; Parsnip (2000) for divorce rates.

Footnotes

Footnotes should only be used if essential. They appear at the bottom of the page. They should be numbered in the text, indicated by superscript Arabic numerals that are to appear after any punctuation marks.

In-text citations

Please use author-date style in in-text citations following APA Style without ampersand:

• For parenthetical citations use a comma between author(s) and date, e.g. (Esping-Andersen and Billari, 2015).
• Separate a series of references with semicolons, e.g. (Sussman, 2019; Sobotka and Beaujouan, 2018; Hellstrand et al. 2008). Do not use any other style of parentheses.
• For more than two authors, use “et al.” throughout, e.g. (Neyer et al., 2013). However, the list of references at the end should name all authors.
• For quotations, add quotation marks and include page number(s) after the year and a comma, e.g. Coleman (1998, p.19) argued that the basic question is “whether there is any imaginable reason why the average should be two.”
• For unpublished materials use “forthcoming” to refer to material scheduled for publication: (Johnson, forthcoming).

References

All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references at the end of the article. References are ordered alphabetically by authors’ names and chronologically per author. Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should include a lowercase letter after the year, corresponding to the order of the references in the reference list.

Please format your references using APA style without ampersand as shown in the examples below.

• Invert authors’ names.
• In case of more than 20 co-authors, name the first 19 co-authors followed by “…” and add the final co-author.
• Put book titles and journal names in italics.
• Do not abbreviate the titles of periodicals in the list of references.
• If available, add DOI.
• Indicate date of access for databases and the full URL address.
• Page numbers in the reference list should be given in full and never elided.

Examples:

Journal article:

Esping-Andersen, G., and Billari, F. C. (2015). Re-theorizing family demographics. Population and Development Review, 41(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00024.x

Journal article with Article number:

Breen, R., and Ermisch, J. (2021). The distributional impact of Covid-19: Geographic variation in mortality in England. Demographic Research, 44, Article 17. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2021.44.17

Book:

Keyfitz, N., and Casell, H. (2005). Applied mathematical demography (3rd ed.). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/b139042

Edited book:

Caselli, G., Vallin, J., and Wunsch, G. (Eds.) (2006). Demography: Analysis and synthesis: A treatise in population studies. (Vols. 1–4). Academic Press.

Contribution in an edited book:

Sobotka, T., and Beaujouan, É. (2018). Late motherhood in low-fertility countries: Reproductive intentions, trends and consequences. In D. Stoop (Ed.), Preventing age related fertility loss (pp. 11–29). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14857-1_2

Reference to a government agency publication:

OECD. (2020). Education at a glance 2020: OECD indicators. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/69096873-en

Database:

HFD (2024) Human Fertility Database. Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Germany) and Vienna Institute of Demography (Austria). Retrieved 11 March 2024 from www.humanfertility.org

United Nations (2022) World Population Prospects 2022. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. https://population.un.org/wpp/

Working Paper:

Hellstrand, J., Nisén, J., Miranda, V., Fallesen, P., Dommermuth, L., and Myrskylä, M. (2020). Not just later, but fewer: Novel trends in cohort fertility in the Nordic countries (MPIDR Working Paper WP-2020-007). Max Plank Institute for Demographic Research https://doi.org/10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2020-007

Preprint:

Ghislandi, S., Muttarak, R., Sauerberg, M., and Scotti, B. (2020). News from the front: Estimation of excess mortality and life expectancy in the major epicenters of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. MedRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.20084335

Unpublished manuscript:

Berg, V., Miettinen, A., Latvala, A. and Rotkirch, A. (2020). Lifestyle or recession? Childbearing ideals, intentions and constraints in Finland 2002–2018. Manuscript in preparation.

Conference presentation:

Beaujouan, É., and Köppen, K. (2022) Chances to Have a Child in a Late Fertility Society. Paper presented at the European Population Conference, Groningen, 29 June–2 July 2022. https://epc2022.eaps.nl/abstracts/210818

Thesis:

Spitzer, S. (2020). Health measures and healthcare utilisation in ageing populations: Demographic and economic perspectives. Ph.D. thesis, Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Newspaper article:

Sussman, A. L. (2019). The end of babies. The New York Times, 16 November 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/capitalism-children.html

Blog post:

Haub, C. (2013). How to write about the birth rate. Demographics Revealed!, 28 February 2013. https://demographicsrevealed.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/how-to-write-about-the-birth-rate/

Supplementary material

Helpful material such as complementary data, tables, figures and additional information that are not essential for understanding the context of the paper should be moved to an online supplementary material, which will be published as a separate document online.

Authors are asked to format supplementary material as detailed below:

• Add title “Supplementary Material” (font size: 15 pt).
• On the next line, put “Supplement to:” and insert reference to your article
• Font: Times New Roman (font size: 11 pt), line spacing of 1.15.
• Tables: single line spacing with 3pt after each line and 6 pt before a new block.
• Numbering of section, figures, tables and equation:
  • Sections: S1., S2., …
  • Figures: Figure S.1, Figure S.2, …
  • Tables: Table S.1, Table S.2, …
  • Equations: (S.1), (S.2), …