Research
Our research and teaching addresses the intersection of demography and social inequality using historical and international comparisons to analyse the causes and consequences of changing life course patterns. Starting point is the widespread assumption that today's life courses have become more complex, flexible and individualised because people increasingly have to adapt their lives to the demands of a globalized economy and increasingly flexible job markets. Such developments are often associated with negative consequences such as growing social inequality, economic insecurity, stress and greater difficulty to combine a career and family.
We use longitudinal data to explore how certain patterns in demographic and socio-economic processes like fertility and employment careers are associated with resource allocation in terms of income inequality and subjective well-being. Three life stages are currently in focus: family formation, employment careers and the transition to retirement.
ongoing projects:
(to read the detailed descriptions, please click on the project title)
- The Intergenerational Transmission of Family Formation (mit Marcel Raab)
- Sibling Similarity in Family Formation (mit Jani Erola, Aleksi Karhula, Marcel Raab)
- A Permutation-based Test for Sequence Comparison (mit Tim F. Liao)
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How Men and Women Synchronize Work and Family in Germany and the United States (mit Silke Aisenbrey und Daniela Grunow)
Link: The Beauty of Research
... more about sequence analysis
Rhythms and Patterns: Sequence Analysis in the Social Sciences
