Jean-François Barras

What if the number of villagers per house (at night time) was proportionate to the size of the house? For example, the small 2x3 (inside) huts could have 1-2 villagers and the large T-shaped one could have a dozen or so. Of course the total number of villagers would still be regulated by the number of doors in the village.

I can confirm that a village lost all its villagers rapidly, and that it seems like they are despawning due to distance from the player.

What I expected to happen was...:
A village stays populated with villagers even if you travel far, eg to an other village.

What actually happened was...:
A village that had kept all its villagers for many day-night cycles, lost all its villagers in one day-night cycle.
This happened when I travelled past my render distance.
I cannot attribute this to a zombie infection because zombies would not spawn that far from the player.
There's also the fact that zombie infections should take some time and leave traces: infected villagers, rotten flesh.