Our Research at the Chair of Sociology of Work

DFG Research Group Reconfiguration and Internalization of Social Structure (RISS)
RISS Project No 6: Intergenerational Transmission of Work-Family Trajectories in Germany

This project compares work-family trajectories of parents born in Germany between 1930 and 1949 with those of their adult children (born 1958-1981) and siblings’ work-family and socio-economic status (SES) trajectories: mother-daughter, father-son, brother-brother, and sister-sister pairs. We aim to investigate the contributions of inter- and intragenerational similarity or divergence in trajectory patterns on the reconfiguration of social structure in Germany after reunification.
We ask:

1. Under what conditions have sons and daughters reproduced or deviated from their fathers’ and mothers’ work-family trajectories?
2. Under what conditions are siblings’ work-family and SES trajectories similar or different?

Tremendous recent economic, demographic, and cultural shifts in Germany suggest that children may not replicate parents’ life course trajectories and resulting positions in the social structure, and that siblings may live very different life courses, with East-West differences likely.
For our empirical analysis, we use the SOEP: longitudinal survey data from a representative sample of about 11,000 German households and more than 20,000 persons. SOEP allows survey respondents from two generations and siblings within one family to be linked and tracked longitudinally.

This project is part of the DFG Research Group RISS / FOR 5173.

CLBO Trust in Organizations

ScienceBurn: Science Careers during and after working at an Elite Institution

The question of women's lack of representation in science has received tremendous attention in the past decades. One explanation for women's lack of advancement to the upper echelons of science is their lack of presence in a given field at the entry and advancement levels. Another is the lower likelihood that women are accepted to elite institutions that provide or increase the probability of networks and visibility relevant for further careers.  What if both of these explanations are not the case?

In our project, we control for the quality of the academic institution by selecting one elite science institution in Europe that has an equal representation of women and men at the pre-doctoral and post-doctoral level, in a field where women have been strongly represented for decades.  We talk to current post-docs, current principal investigators, and alumni of this organization to see where people tend to go after leaving this institution and what are the processes by which they decide what to do next.  How can the exit of women from academic science be explained if the quality of the institution and the „pipeline“ are no longer factors?