Research Programme

The research interests of the chair members focus on family, intergenerational relations, age(ing), and health, e.g.:

(How) has the family division of labor changed during the Corona pandemic?

Is there a relationship between the length of eligibility for parental leave and maternal health?

What role do parenthood and gender play in individual wealth accumulation?

What do gay and lesbian family relationships look like?

What role do living conditions in childhood and social inequalities play in the chances of aging "successfully"?

Which social conditions promote voluntary engagement in old age?

We answer these and other questions on an international comparative basis, e.g. with data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), or with important national data sets, such as the German Family Panel (pairfam), whose focus 'Intergenerational Relationships' is coordinated at the Chair.

We regularly present our research results at national and international conferences and publish them in high-ranking journals, e.g.: Demography, European Sociological Review, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, Journal of Marriage and Family, Social Science & Medicine.

Research collaborations include DIW Berlin (Research Fellow), Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy (Senior Fellow), VU Amsterdam (International Research Fellow, 2014-16) and King's College London (Visiting Professor, 2015).