Petra Sauer

A college on every cape: gender equality, gender segregation and local college openings Abstract. The expansion of higher educational systems in Western countries in the latter half of the 20th century is central to the reversal of the gender

New at ESR!

#OpenAccess!

Using new data on the establishment of Norwegian colleges 1969–1992 linked to individual register data, #ARogne #TKnutsen @modals.li revisit the role of local access to higher education in shaping gendered educational outcomes!

doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcaf060

📢 Last call! Register for the #Fribourg #WinterSchool in #DataAnalytics & #MachineLearning (📅 Feb 2–13, 2026) until Jan 25. Join us on site in Fribourg or online for data analytics, predictive/causal machine learning, and deep learning, using Python, R, Julia, & KNIME: www.unifr.ch/appecon/en/w...

The UK LIS Satellite Office is pleased to announce that LIS data can now be securely accessed through the SafePod Network (SPN), a key channel for expanding the use of LIS data.

Eligible UK-based LIS researchers can now access LIS data from participating universities across the SPN in the UK 📊

Vacancies Jobs and Vacancies at INET Oxford, The Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

I'm hiring a post-doctoral researcher to join us at the University of Oxford and our @inetoxford.bsky.social Inequality team. Ideal candidate has experience in the fields of inequality, social mobility, and/or public policy. We can sponsor visas for non-UK applicants. www.inet.ox.ac.uk/vacancies

Markets and Mobility: How Employers Structure Economic Opportunity

Intergenerational mobility, measuring the ability to achieve economic success regardless of family background, is a critical reflection of a society’s commitment to equality of opportunity. Rising income inequality has raised concerns about the potential erosion of upward mobility. While education has traditionally been viewed as the path to mobility, its transformative power is facing challenges in a rapidly evolving job market. This project reorients the focus of intergenerational mobility research by highlighting the labor market as an arena for the reproduction of advantage. It employs a comparative approach, using administrative data from four countries: Sweden, Austria, England, and the United States. It also incorporates evidence from a broader set of nations through cross-national surveys, longitudinal household surveys, labor force surveys, secondary data, and digital trace data. The project employs cutting-edge empirical methods, including quasi- experimental designs, event studies, within-family comparisons, decomposition analyses, counterfactual simulations, and diagnostic checks to rigorously assess the extent of inequalities in the labor market. The research investigates how family background influences the sorting of individuals to employers and workplaces, accounting for education and occupation, and explores variations in career progression within and between employers. It comprehensively catalogues and assesses mechanisms shaping workplace inequality, contributing to the development of social closure theory. Additionally, the project evaluates intervention strategies, encompassing both employer practices and government actions, to promote fair opportunity in the labor market.

JOB! I'm hiring a postdoc for 2 years on my ERC MaMo project.

Looking for someone with strong quant methods, ongoing work close to the project's aims, and a desire to publish in sociology. Start flexible in the next 12 months.

Formal call out shortly, but contact me first.

Submit your paper to the RC28 summer meeting in NYC! Thank you NYU organizers @siweicheng.bsky.social and Mike Hout! as.nyu.edu/research-cen...

CRIS at the Sciences Po, Paris is seeking a post-doctoral researcher to join the Research Team led by Prof. Mirna Safi working on “The Discrimination-Inequality Cycle: Bridging Unequal Treatment and Unequal Outcomes across Countries, Regions and Workplaces” Apply:
www.sciencespo.fr/cris/files/J...

🔔The University of Vienna invites applications for at least 40 funded doctoral positions across the Social Sciences & Humanities to do your own research project and choose your preferred supervisor.
❗Application deadline: March 2, 2026
👇Check eligibility here:
careers.univie.ac.at/en/praedoc/p...

Already two thematic conferences this year, April in Trento and May in Zurich ... can get quite busy ...

Life Course & Social Stratification Call for Abstracts for the ECSR Thematic Conference Life Course and Social Stratification 23-24 April 2026, University of Trento, Italy The Life Course approach has gained powerful traction across th...

ECSR Thematic Conference on the Life Course and Social Stratification, 23-24 April, University of Trento. Smaller thematic conferences like these are usually the best place to present and network, imo. Submit by 22 February. sites.google.com/unitn.it/ecs...

▶️ Send your research proposal (up to 3 pages), contact details, description of the desired duration, period of stay, and a CV to lis2er@lisdatacenter.org
Further details can be found on our website www.lisdatacenter.org/news-and-eve...

📍 Period of Stay:
2–8 weeks, anytime between March and December 2026 (excluding mid-July–mid-August)

📅 Important dates:
Deadline for applications: January 31, 2026
Notifications of result: February 15, 2026
Earliest start: March 1, 2026

Great opportunity if you have projects that use LIS data. You will be hosted by really nice and helpful people!

Your new year party is over. It is time to complete.

📘 Der neue INEQ 2-Jahresbericht ist da!
Im INEQ 2-Jahresbericht 2024/2025 ziehen wir Bilanz über unsere Arbeit der vergangenen zwei Jahre – von Forschung über Lehre bis hin zu Veranstaltungen.
📄 Der Bericht ist ab sofort auf unserer Website verfügbar: short.wu.ac.at/ineq_jahresb...
#INEQ

Golden opportunity for anyone interested in labor markets, inequality, orgs in the US context

Opportunity Mobility and Inherited Inequalities Visiting PhD Grant Spend one academic term at the International Inequalities Institute. This visiting period assists doctoral researchers in their own research, and connects them with a network of academic contacts.

3rd Opportunity & Mobility research grant at III LSE. Join us for a visiting period! www.lse.ac.uk/internationa...

🎉 New TREE data available on SwissUbase!
The first TREE cohort follows individuals from compulsory school in 2000 through education and employment up to 2019. A unique longitudinal resource for research on educational pathways and careers in Switzerland.
👉 doi.org/10.48573/fdq...

Three days left to send interesting abstracts tackling various topics of social policy to socialpolicy.ch, a swiss based diamond open access journal.

The geography of intergenerational mobility in Europe How do opportunities for intergenerational mobility depend on where you live? We address this question using European Social Survey data, studying the association between parents’ and children’s occupation, and how it varies by region of residence. Absolute mobility, largely driven by shifts in occupational structure, differs from relative mobility, which reflects the extent to which opportunities are equal across social origins. Capital regions emerge as hubs of absolute, but not necessarily relative, mobility. Absolute mobility correlates with human capital, labor market, demographic, and spatial factors. In contrast, relative mobility is primarily shaped by economic disparities between social classes. Greater inequality entails less mobility, even comparing different places within a country.

How robust are country rankings in educational mobility? We investigate the impact of analytical choices on country comparisons in intergenerational educational mobility using a multiverse approach. A literature survey gives rise to 2,880 plausible ways of measuring educational mobility, which we apply to European Social Survey data from 16 countries. Although some countries consistently appear at the top or bottom of the mobility rankings, most show substantial variation. Beyond our methodological contribution, we report two substantive findings. First, some countries often characterized as low-mobility emerge as matching or surpassing the egalitarian Nordic countries, reinforcing the view that wider mobility differences cannot be attributed solely to the education system but must be sought elsewhere, such as the labor market. Second, the choice of parameter—such as regression coefficients, correlations, or categorical measures—is the single most influential factor that shifts country rankings. As different parameters carry distinct theoretical meanings, researchers should treat parameter choice not merely as a robustness check but as an opportunity to test and refine competing theories.

Immensely proud to see two newish publications out that begun their life as masters theses a wee while ago... links below

Thanks to Social Policy Blog for posting our blog and for pointing readers interested in the politics of #fathers' leave to the original article: Martin Gurín & Janet C. Gornick, 2024, Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy 40:3.
@stone-lis.bsky.social
@paidleaveforall.bsky.social

Congrats!!

Last days to send your semi-plenary proposal for the next SSA Congress in Fribourg. ⛳

Congrats!!!

Between privilege and merit: Selection criteria and inequality in access to prestigious fields of study

Talk by Dr. Claudia Finger (University of Bern)

📅 10/12/2025
🕓 16:15–17:45
📍 Room B 202, Fabrikstrasse 8, University of Bern

More info: Research Colloquium Program (link in bio)

Hi Sasha, it is not an example, but I like the paper of Cinelli and Hazlett (2020) on sensitivity analysis doi.org/10.1111/rssb....

Would it be possible to see your reading list?

Hey, hab das erst jetzt gechecked, das ist ja cool, gratuliere!

🚀 A new version of our causalweight package for the statistical software R is online, containing some of the latest causal machine learning methods for the estimation of treatment effects: www.rdocumentation.org/packages/cau...
#CausalInference #CausalAnalysis #MachineLearning

Very excited about forthcoming @sfjournal.bsky.social with Jessie Himmelstern

academic.oup.com/sf/advance-a...

How has job insecurity changed over the past 1/2ish century?

📢 New dataset for researchers!
The new European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) Dataset tracks parenting leave regulations over five decades! It provides harmonised data on maternity, co-parent, paid parental, and job-protected leave across 21 countries from 1970 to 2024.
🔗 eplp-dataset.org