Dirk Witteveen

🧩 The results reveal two sides of the same "social closure coin". Occupational elitism increases the size of the pie (raising average occupational earnings through collective rent generation), yet working-class entrants who overcome access barriers still receive smaller slices of those rents.

🔍 However, the returns to occupational elitism are stratified within occupations. Individuals from upper-class backgrounds receive a significantly larger earnings premium from employment in high-elitism occupations than their working-class peers.

📊 In longitudinal data from the UK, I show that occupational elitism is positively associated with mean earnings, net of individual characteristics and other forms of occupational closure (including licensure, credentialing requirements, and union density).

📢 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...

It's *sneakers*. 👟

New York millionaires: threatening to flee the city since 2009

Thanks Sander. Very cool!

Racial Gaps in Career Mobility during the Great Migration - Dirk Witteveen, 2025 The author investigates whether the Great Migration closed or mitigated racial disparities in career advancement. Using linked historical census data, tracking ...

NEW research by Dr @dirkwitteveen.bsky.social reveals the persistence of racial inequality in the 1910-20s Great Migration ⬇️
The findings reveal that the Great Migration maintained racial gaps in career mobility.
Read in full 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

You want to stay in academia? Get a grant, they say

Moving up by moving up?

D. Witteveen (@dirkwitteveen.bsky.social)'s new #Socius study pushes back against the logic of #industrialism by comparing career trajectories for Black and White men by #domesticmigration status during and after the #GreatMigration

Read: doi.org/10.1177/2378...

I also study AI.

Democracy Now! is seeking an experienced leader to join our team as Director of Technology.

More details: democracynow.hire.trakstar.com/jobs/fk0plq3/

Gender and racial diversity socialization in science - Nature Computational Science A computational null model is proposed to study the gender and racial diversity-association effects in academia. Researchers’ early training in diverse environments is strongly correlated with nurturi...

📢Out now! Weihua Li, @jenniebrand.bsky.social, @aaronclauset.bsky.social, and colleagues show that researchers’ early training in diverse environments is strongly correlated with nurturing diverse groups in the established period. www.nature.com/articles/s43... #cssky #NetSci

Following the 10-vote win that made him mayor of Burlington 43 years ago, @sanders.senate.gov took to national television for the very first time to explain his socialist politics.

Tell 'm Bernie.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

⬇️ NEW publication from Dr Dirk Witteveen (Departmental Lecturer) in International Migration Review:
'What Drives Immigrant Inequalities in Career Growth in the Age of Mass Migration?'
Read in full: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

WE ARE HIRING!! Senior Research Fellow Demographic Science (Associate/Full Professor) @oxforddemsci.bsky.social @reubencollege.bsky.social
See: lnkd.in/e_Gw84JN

#demography in Oxford: www.demography.ox.ac.uk
Our recent celebration: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIu4...
DM or reach out
*PLEASE RE-POST*

What Drives Immigrant Inequalities in Career Growth in the Age of Mass Migration?

Dirk Witteveen & @mobarakhossain.net examine the association between modernization & career growth of American men & European immigrants in this Open Access article:

I actually thought those are transition nodes in the Dutch and German educational systems

What Drives Immigrant Inequalities in Career Growth in the Age of Mass Migration? - Dirk Witteveen, Mobarak Hossain, 2025 This article examines the association between modernization and career growth of American men and European immigrants, focusing on heterogeneity along ancestry,...

New paper in International Migration Review! 📝📈

Our analyses of linked 1900–1940 US Censuses suggest that macroeconomic opportunities do not explain career growth variation variation between multi-gen US men and 1st-/2nd-gen European immigrants.

with @mobarakhossain.net 🙌

doi.org/10.1177/0197...

Some RC28 @ Milan impressions

Very interesting presentation by @dirkwitteveen.bsky.social at #RC28 on the match between college majors and jobs in the US. What seems to matter most is getting into the occupation that matches degree, not as much the skills or whether you train further.

New in Social Forces: Breathing Unequal Air😷

Our study shows that immigrant minorities in England & Germany face higher air pollution exposure🏭—and moving doesn’t help🚶. In England, disparities are 3x larger than in Germany

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/sf/s...
#EnvironmentalJustice #Inequality #AirPollution

Call for Papers Offshore Finance: The Socio-Economics of a Global System Special Issue of Socio-Economic Review Guest editors Brooke Harrington, Dartmouth College, (Brooke.H

Are you a social scientist or historian whose work includes analysis of the offshore finance system?

Then please submit a paper to the special issue of Socio-Economic Review I'll be guest editing w/Kimberly Kay Hoang & @vanessahistory.bsky.social.

Due May 15th.

academic.oup.com/ser/pages/cf...

🚀Bluesky, we are hiring! 4 days left to apply.
2.5 y postdoc on the role of relocations in refugee integration @WZB in Berlin

Please share! DM for further info
wzb.hr4you.org/job/view/342...

"In short, QCA often finds complexity where none exists."

This is a great new ETP editorial by my coauthor Mikko Rönkkö, Markku Maula, and Karl Wennberg, illustrating the massive false positives problem in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). doi.org/10.1177/1042...

Graph showing health outcomes related to spending with the US doing the worst

This is pretty shocking. Make sure you look in the lower right hand corner.

Spent a fantastic week with colleagues and friends at Stockholm University's @sofi.su.se, despite the slightly disappointing weather ☁️ 👀

I'm very excited to give a talk about ethnic earnings inequality in football at UCL this coming week.

Hybrid format! 🧑🏻‍💻👀