The German Youth Institute (DJI) is a non-university social science research entity. Its focus is on studying the situation of children, youth, women, and families along with the public services provided to support and promote these groups.

The German Youth Institute was founded in 1963 through consolidation of the Munich-based German Youth Archives (Deutsches Jugendarchiv) and the Bonn-based Study Office for Youth Issues (Studienbüro für Jugendfragen). In the following decades, it developed a social science research and consultancy profile that went far beyond youth research issues. Family, childhood and gender research, as well as youth welfare research and social monitoring, were added in due course. In the past forty years, the German Youth Institute has provided strong incentives to develop care models for children, youths and families as well as the related research fields. At the same time, it continued to take up topical social issues. The institute has always tried to rise to this dual challenge of working on longer-term targeted research projects and responding to "current affairs".