Dr. Mirjam Fischer

Postdoctoral Researcher 

Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main
Faculty of Social Science
Sociology Institute
Chair of Sociology specializing in quantitative analyzes of social change
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6
PEG-building, room 3.G070
60629 Frankfurt am Main 

Phone: 069/798-36540 


Biography 

Mirjam Fischer (she/her) is a research associate at the Institute for Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Goethe University. Her research focus is on the quantitative study of sexual and gender diversity in Europe. Substantially, Fischer's research deals with structural inequality between lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer (LGBTQ*) people and the cis heterosexual majority, and she has published in the areas of family, child welfare, social relationships and discrimination on the labor market. Fischer also deals extensively with methodological issues relating to quantitative surveys of LGBTQ* people (cf. the Special Issue Measuring LGBT Populations in the Journal of Official Statistics).

Since 2020, Mirjam Fischer is PI of the BMBF-funded research project "Gender and Sexual Diversity in Focus: Participation and Diversity of Life Forms (SOEP-GeSMin)," together with Simon Kühne (Bielefeld University). The project goals include improving the data infrastructure on LGBTQ* people in Germany and gaining a reliable knowledge base on the living situation of this population group. The project includes the supervision of two doctoral students, who are each doing their doctorate on the topics of LGBTQ* people on the labor market and on survey methods for difficult-to-reach populations.

In addition, Fischer has been involved in a number of large data collections, including supplementing the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) with an oversample of LGB households in 2019. During her doctorate, Fischer conducted a representative web survey of persons in same-sex and different-sex relationships in the Netherlands, based on a sample from the Dutch population registers. In her current role, Fischer is responsible for the coordination of the data collection for the DFG research project FOR 5173: Reconfiguration and Internalization of Social Structure (RISS), led by Daniela Grunow and Richard Traunmüller.

Mirjam Fischer studied media and communication sciences at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (2009-2012) and social sciences at the University of Amsterdam (2012-2014). In 2018, Fischer then completed her doctorate on the subject of “Free to live their lives as they wish? The social well-being gap between persons in same-sex and mixed-sex relationships in Europe", also at the University of Amsterdam. Prior to Fischer's current position at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Fischer worked in teaching and research at the Health Equity Institute of San Francisco State University, at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin and at the University of Cologne.

More information here.  

Photo: Dr. Mirjam Fischer