Research

The role of family background for individuals’ material and psychological wellbeing

In this project, I study intergenerational transmission of welfare and wellbeing. My aim is to extend knowledge on the types of advantages and disadvantages that are intergenerationally reproduced and through which channels this occurs. I argue that in addition to studying the role of family context on socio-economic attainment, we need to investigate the role that family context plays for broader aspects of individual’s material and psychological wellbeing. Taking a multidimensional perspective on human wellbeing, the central question is whether family context is providing advantages in terms of welfare and wellbeing that go beyond standard economic outcomes observed in the literature. Studying this question across countries and birth-cohorts provides an opportunity to shed light on the role of institutions and social policy in fostering intergenerational transmission of advantage and disadvantage across various dimensions of wellbeing. This project is funded by the British Academy. 

Intergenerational social mobility in Europe

Intergenerational social mobility is the relationship between the socio-economic position an individual occupies and the position in which he or she was brought up. In this project we extend the country-comparative perspective by studying class mobility across many countries in Europe and for over-time changes we are taking a cohort-approach. The first objective of this project is to give an up-to-date descriptive account of cross-country and over-time differences in absolute and relative mobility rates in Europe. The second aim is to identify the impact of specific institutional or macro-economic features on social mobility, thereby advancing understanding of contextual and policy determinants of social mobility. This project is in collaboration with Erzsébet Bukodi and Brian Nolan at the University of Oxford.

Our first paper from this project, entitled "Intergenerational class mobility in Europe: A new account and an old story", is published as part of the Institute for New Economic Thinking Working Paper series:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Presentation at the Inequality Lecture Series at the Oxford Martin School:

Employment, Equity and Growth (EEG) Programme

The Employment, Equity and Growth (EEG) programme at INET Oxford is focused on economic theories, policies and institutional changes required for fairer, more inclusive growth. My role within the EEG project is to go beyond income and look at the evolution and distribution of various aspects of living standards, including financial stress and burdens but also psychological wellbeing. Read more about the EEG programme.

Self-regarding and other-regarding attitudes: the role of contextual inequality

This was my PhD research project conducted at the University of Amsterdam. This dissertation presents a comparative study concerning the role of contextual inequality for self-regarding and other-regarding individual attitudes. Contextual inequality is expressed in terms of distributional and institutional factors – income inequality and welfare state effort on a national level. The central question is whether self-regarding attitudes and people’s eagerness to contribute to the welfare of others are more prevalent in egalitarian or inegalitarian societies, and whether these ‘contextual effects’ vary depending on individuals’ own socio-economic status.