Herman van de Werfhorst 🟥

How has public belief in the importance of merit🥇 and privilege💰 changed over time?

🆕Data viz shows a widening gap b/w the perceived importance of family wealth (privilege) and hard work (merit) in a majority of countries in the West

Paper: doi.org/10.1177/2378...
Code: github.com/cybe2001/mer...

Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology The Swedish Institute for Social research (SOFI) is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Stockholm University. The institute is an internationally leading research institute in the field of socia

Great 2-3 year postdoc opportunity in the Social Policy unit here at @sofi.su.se, Stockholm University

SOFI is an incredible research and work environment, could not recommend it more

Deadline for applications (including your own research plan): 13th April 2026

Stopover at Milano

Thanks @anatoliab.bsky.social and Michael Grätz for the invitation!

It was nice to be in Lausanne to give a talk at the LIVES centre. Great group, interdisciplinary with sociologists, social psychologists, and social policy scholars.

@eunjeongpaek.bsky.social examines whether workers’ access to employee-driven schedule flexibility increased from 1997 to 2015, as well as how trends in access vary across 11 European countries and the United States. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Mona Keijzer verlaat BBB en gaat als zelfstandig Kamerlid verder In een interview met De Telegraaf spreekt ze over een grote vertrouwensbreuk met de leiding van de partij.

Just four months after the last elections, and the Dutch House of Representatives already has two new split off parties. Both split offs are on the political right (from PVV and from BBB).

nos.nl/l/2603756

A slacking occupational structure in Britain? Reflections on a recent column in the Financial Times

Fascinating response to @jburnmurdoch.ft.com’s piece on whether a university education is worth it, by my EUI colleague @hermwerf.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/hermwerf...

Update: the Swiss trains are on time.

En jullie allemaal naar Milaan

Or tariffs!

The dif in dif estimate may attribute the win to politics

A slacking occupational structure in Britain? Reflections on a recent column in the Financial Times

A slacking occupational structure in Britain? Reflections on my substack on a piece in the @financialtimes.com by John Burn-Murdoch. And what does this piece imply for the debate on overeducation?
@data.ft.com hermwerf.substack.com/p/a-slacking...

Als ik in NL was … playlist gekeken uiteraard

Sentimentele gedachten aan de verzameling singletjes van mijn ouders, van hun jonge jaren. Met hun overgenomen pickup, the Andrew Sisters luisteren. Ik was een jaar of 7.

Florence, waar ik meestentijds woon.

Impressive every time.

Ik had een eerdere oproep al gezien. Prachtig initiatief.

Allemaal effe doneren

Good luck! And no worries

Would be delighted to read

Great!

A slacking occupational structure in Britain? Reflections on a recent column in the Financial Times

A slacking occupational structure in Britain? Reflections on my substack on a piece in the @financialtimes.com by John Burn-Murdoch. And what does this piece imply for the debate on overeducation?
@data.ft.com hermwerf.substack.com/p/a-slacking...

De nieuwe kabinetsplannen leiden tot grotere ongelijkheid. Hier even een grafiekje van de gini-coefficient van netto-huishoudsinkomens (bron: LIS). Voor degenen die denken dat we in een nieuwe neoliberale 'Paarse' tijd belanden, de jaren van de Paarse kabinetten uitgelicht.

my polisci friends: can you recommend papers on within- and between-party family party positioning with Manifesto data? Is there a lot of variation within party families x countries?

De nieuwe kabinetsplannen leiden tot grotere ongelijkheid. Hier even een grafiekje van de gini-coefficient van netto-huishoudsinkomens (bron: LIS). Voor degenen die denken dat we in een nieuwe neoliberale 'Paarse' tijd belanden, de jaren van de Paarse kabinetten uitgelicht.

Wij doen bij ons field seminar, onderdeel van het PhD programma, tegenwoordig een mondeling examen. Beviel iedereen uitstekend. Uiteraard zijn PhD-kandidaten intrinsiek gemotiveerd.

📢 In this Social Forces article, I introduce occupational elitism as a novel measure of social closure: the share of upper-class background workers within an occupation.

Its consequences for earnings stratification can be examined using a social closure theory lens.

🔓 doi.org/10.1093/sf/s...

Why does a worse candidate win? Or an inferior song dominate?

New article with @alexgelas.bsky.social, @pantelispa.bsky.social & Gaël Le Mens.

We show that often once A becomes even slightly more popular than B, people choose A much more often.

www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

🙋🏼‍♂️