Understanding challenging inequalities and solving problems
Measuring inequalities, modelling dynamics, creating new methods, revolutionizing concepts, are our way to analyze societal transformations with deep investments in health science, education change, longitudinal approach of ageing and even artificial-intelligence based research processes, to identify socioeconomic problems and their potential solutions through comparison, experiments and big data.
Distribution of resources and (un)healthy societies
Income, education, wealth, health, inequalities
IRSEI hosts a total of five professorships: Louis Chauvel, Philippe Van Kerm, Anja Leist, Dina Maskileyson, and Michèle Baumann (Em. Prof.), three structural postdoctoral positions, one structural PhD position and a number of postdoctoral and doctoral researchers funded through different projects.
Researchers are trained and provide expertise in interdisciplinary fields shared by sociology, economics, public health, psychology, and computer science.
This expertise provides the foundation for in-depth disciplinary studies, and synergies for interdisciplinary research on IRSEI’s central frameworks of
- Intergenerational dynamics & fairness
- Social sustainability
- Socioeconomic inequalities and social stratification
- Life course & ageing
These areas are tackled in empirical research on income, wealth, education, labor markets, health & well-being, and social policies, with gender, race/ethnicity and other social characteristics being important determinants of inequalities in different domains and for different outcomes.
Research projects
Some of our projects
IRSEI extends its focus to new domains like health, ageing, education, wellbeing, to understand how social policies can mitigate new inequalities. Research on shrinking middle classes, dementia, new precariat, among others, on European and on highly unequal countries, are developed through new methods (neighborhood effects, Personal Health Records, AI) to understand emerging challenges.
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Start date
01/05/2022
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Duration in months
67
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Funding
IRSEI
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Project Team
Louis Chauvel; Francisco Ceron; Jason Settels; Emily Murphy
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Abstract
Health inequalities result from multidimensional socioeconomic inequalities (income, education, class, wealth, etc.). Temporality is brought into sharp focus as health and wealth tend to move in opposite directions over time. Whereas health deteriorates over a lifetime, wealth acts either as a stable or compounding resource. We therefore expect wealth to affect health, beyond other socioeconomic factors. The key question is how far the reach of wealth is on one’s health: Does wealth promote health across generations? Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID; 1984-2019), we examine the effects of intergenerational wealth, net of current generational wealth, on age-adjusted self-assessed health (ASAH) for working-age adults. Results show both current and parental generational wealth benefit health across the life course, net of other socioeconomic health confounders. Findings suggest that for each higher wealth strata of parents, better relative health is maintained. Notably, wealth-induced health gradients appear to increase over the life course; we find relative health gains from wealth to be magnified with advancing age. This implies that wealth accumulation provides an intergenerational means of controlling time: a downward trajectory of health remains irreversible but the wealthier benefit from slower paths. Sociologists are encouraged to pay greater attention to wealth inequalities, despite difficulties in their measurement.
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Link
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Start date
01/01/2023
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Duration in months
67
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Funding
European Research Council
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Project Team
Anja Leist; Fabiana Ribeiro; Anouk Geraets; Matthias Klee; Jung Hyun Kim
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Partners
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Abstract
Cognitive abilities gradually deteriorate as we get older. While a certain amount of cognitive decline is a normal part of ageing, some people will experience severe deterioration and struggle with ordinary daily tasks. The EU-funded CRISP project comparatively assesses the contextual influences on cognitive ageing with a focus on inequalities related to educational opportunities and gender inequalities. It also quantifies the ability of singular and clustered individual characteristics to predict cognitive ageing and diagnosis of dementia. The findings will be useful for policymaking and can guide preventive approaches to delay cognitive ageing.
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Link
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Start date
01/01/2021
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Duration in months
72
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Funding
H2020
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Project Team
Philippe Van Kerm
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Partners
LISER, ESRI Dublin, IBS Warsaw
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Abstract
The project studies the effects of robot penetration on income inequality in 14 European countries between 2006-2018, a period of rapid adoption of robots. We first show that, similarly to the U.S., automation reduced hourly wages and employment in Europe. We then use the estimated wage and employment shocks as input to the EUROMOD microsimulation model to assess how robot-driven shocks affected household income inequality. Automation appears to widen income inequality in European countries, but its contribution was very small in the period considered. European countries’ tax and benefit systems absorbed wage and employment shocks caused by automation. Benefits played a larger role, especially in Western Europe. Welfare states appear more effective in mitigating the effects of automation in Europe than in the U.S.