Though demography is central to INED, the scope of its research covers all forms of "population studies". Its researchers have very diverse fields of expertise, including sociology, economics, geography, history, political science, public health and statistics.

INED's current research themes, covered by its thirty key projects, include

• the demographic situation in France and the industrialized countries
• fertility, sexual behaviour, new patterns of union and family formation, adoption
• contraception, abortion and assisted reproductive technology (ART)
• trends in causes of death, longevity, health inequalities
• demographic questions in southern countries (demographic transition, population ageing)
• residential mobility, forms of sociability, housing, housing insecurity, residential segregation
• gender relations (sex discrimination) in northern and southern countries
• economic demography (microeconomics of the family, work-family balance, pensions)
• international migration and minorities, mechanisms of integration and discrimination
• construction of administrative categories in population management, national and local identities
• methodology of international demographic comparisons
• history of European populations
• history of demographic knowledge and learned societies (17th-20th centuries)