Research
Current Research Projects
The unit’s research focuses on three different topics, whose common perspective is based on (quantitative) life course research: (higher) education, labour market returns and social inequality, e.g. inequality according to social origin, gender or ethnicity. In doing so, we contribute to research on the Institute of Sociology’s key topics of #GenderRelations, Care and Social ReproductionExternal link and #Inequality, Class and OwnershipExternal link.
Our central concern is to understand the importance of national institutions and individual decision-making processes for the structuring of unequal educational and employment histories. For example, we investigate why young women continue to choose different degree subjects and professions than young men and how this contributes to the reproduction of gender inequalities in the labour market; why boys and young people from immigrant families are disadvantaged in the education system today; why university students’ social background also influences their choice of degree subjects and what consequences this has for their university careers; or to what extent tuition fees actually reproduce origin-related inequalities in the higher education system.
Our research projects include theory-based empirical analyses of social phenomena. We primarily conduct our studies using quantitative empirical social research methods, applied to secondary data from representative population surveys as well as our own data collected using various methods (written, telephone and digital). Increasingly, we also use qualitative research methods as well as integrative multi-method designs to obtain a more comprehensive picture of social reality. With regard to statistical methodological research, our focus is on statistical modelling, e.g. multi-level models, interaction effects and missing data.
Research Projects on Gender Relations, Care and Social Reproduction
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Dr. Charlotte Büchner: Developmental Tasks and Gender-Specific Educational Inequalities (Habilitation Project)
This habilitation (post-doctoral qualification) project deals with boys’ and girls’ differential school performance and educational success. Previous studies have shown that gender-specific differences in school participation in education and in the acquisition of qualifications are evident above all at upper secondary level and that these clearly favour girls. Boys are overrepresented at lower-track schools and leave school without qualifications more frequently, while girls are overrepresented at upper-track schools and more frequently obtain university entrance qualifications than boys. The concept of psychosocial developmental tasks suggests that girls and boys manage key areas of life in adolescence differently and that this is related to their different educational achievement levels. This empirical investigation is interested in the question of what differences exist between boys and girls in coping with the developmental tasks of bonding, regeneration and participation and to what extent these contribute to gender-specific educational inequalities that disadvantage boys. In addition to gender, the study also includes boys’ and girls’ educational milieus in order to develop more differentiated insights within a discussion of the theoretical concept. The empirical study is based on a survey from 2014, conducted and financed by the Chair of General Educational Studies and Empirical Educational Research at the University of Erfurt. A total of 1,192 students in grades nine and ten at German comprehensive and grammar schools in the Central Thuringia region were surveyed.
Project duration: April 2017 – September 2021 Cooperation partners: Prof. Dr. Florian von Rosenberg, University of Erfurt
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Prof. Dr. Kathrin Leuze and Ralf Minor: Uncertain occupational aspirations in adolescence': Influencing Factors and Coping Strategies (funded by the DFG)
Findings from SC4 of the National Education Panel Study (NEPS) have shown that, even though the institutional framework is characterised by a comparatively high degree of occupational specificity, around one third of German adolescents are unable to make precise statements about realistic occupational aspirations at the end of compulsory schooling. Despite the high personal importance of career decisions for future life paths, little research has been conducted on this phenomenon at either the international or national level. This project therefore aims to explore sociodemographic influencing factors and patterns of occupational uncertainty. Secondly, it will investigate how uncertain adolescents cope with upcoming transitions into training and study. Drawing on conceptual and theoretical approaches to career choice and motivation regulation (Ginzberg and Heckhausen), the project will identify factors associated with this phenomenon and explain the lack of realistic occupational aspirations at the end of compulsory schooling. To this end, we will primarily draw on cohorts 3 and 4 of the NEPS. We also plan to conduct a preliminary re-coding of open-ended data on occupational aspirations to gain additional information. Subsequently, longitudinal cluster analyses are performed to identify different chronological patterns of career uncertainty among young people. Cluster membership is then modelled using multinomial logistic regression. The second part of the project examines possible coping strategies based on knowledge about chronological patterns of career uncertainty. The life courses of young people experiencing career uncertainty are examined separately according to their academic and non-academic institutional backgrounds.
Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG)
Project duration: November 2025 – November 2028
Project staff: Ralf Minor
Assistants: Lena Luise Wagner
Research Projects on Inequality, Class and Ownership
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Björn Seipelt: Conditions and Consequences of Origin-Specific Choices of Degree Subject (PhD project, Funded by the Leibniz Center for Science and Society)
The PhD project asks the question of why people from different social backgrounds choose different subjects and what consequences this has for their degree programmes and access to doctoral degrees. The project will first show which origin-specific inequalities exist in the choices of degree subject and how they can be explained. Second, the project asks what consequences origin-specific choices of degree subject have for further academic success among people from different social backgrounds. Third, the project will address the consequences of origin-specific choices of degree subject for origin-specific inequalities in access to doctoral studies. By examining the causes and consequences of the phenomenon at different points in time – before beginning university, during university, and after graduation – the study produces a comprehensive picture of the empirically confirmed but not yet adequately researched origin-specific disparities in choices of degree subject. The focus is always on the far-reaching implications of origin-specific choices of degree subject for the reproduction of social inequality.
Project duration: October 2018 – March 2021
Cooperation partners: Dr. Markus Lörz, German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW)
The PhD project is being conducted as part of the bridging project Choosing a Field of Study: Determinants, Processes and Social Reproduction at the Leibniz Center for Science and Society (LCSS).External link
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Prof. Dr. Kathrin Leuze: Property Inequality in the Private Sphere. Couple-Internal and External Drivers of Change in Property Arrangements in Couple Relationships
The research project aims to analyze the structural change of property in couple households and to work out its effects on the division of labor within the partnership as well as gender relations. The distribution of property between the partners is examined as well as the practices and patterns of interpretation they establish in order to enable or restrict the disposal of property. The result of such a doing property is a couple-specific property arrangement that reproduces and possibly transforms the hegemonic property and gender order.
Empirically, the structural change of property arrangements in the private sphere is investigated with the help of a mixed-methods design. First, it is reconstructed qualitatively and exploratively which different types of property arrangements are currently evident as a result of doing property in couple households in East and West Germany. It is also examined how different practices of disposition are related to the distribution of individual private property between the partners and whether they systematically differ between East and West Germany. The comparison of couples of different age cohorts provides information on whether and to what extent there has been an equalization of property arrangements in couple households between East and West. Finally, the consequences of different practices of disposing of property are analysed with regard to the division of labour within partnerships.
The analyses are based on extensive data from over 50 qualitative couple interviews as well as dyadic quantitative data from more than 9,000 couples from the Socio-Economic Panel. The combination of these different datasets in mixed-methods design allows for a comprehensive view from both a micro- and macro-sociological perspective. This approach not only supports theoretical developments, but also shows practical implications for a potential equalization of gender relations.
Funding: German Research Foundation
Project duration: April 2021 – December 2024 (1st funding phase)
Staff: Dr. Agnieszka Althaber, Dr. Robin K. Saalfeld
Cooperation partners: Dr. Nicole Kapelle, Humboldt University of Berlin; Dr. Tatjana Fenicia, Zurich University of Applied Sciences
Further information on the project can be found here: https://sfb294-eigentum.de/de/teilprojekte/eigentumsungleichheit-im-privaten/External link
Publications
Althaber, A., Leuze, K., & Künzel, R. (2023). Financial Solidarity or Autonomy? How Gendered Wealth and Income Inequalities Influence Couples’ Money Management. Social Inclusion, 11(1), 187–199. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i1.6005External link Externer Link
Peters, Florian; Rinne, Jonathan; Saalfeld, Robin K.; Schmalz, Stefan; Stuart, Amelie; Weth, Lydia von der (2024): Eigentumskonflikte - eine Typologie. Hg. v. Sonderforschungsbereich/Transregio 294 „Strukturwandel des Eigentums“ (Working Paper Nr. 5). https://sfb294-eigentum.de/media/filer_public/f9/08/f908691c-7aaa-424c-831b-71e7818ee46b/wp_05_fin.pdfExterner LinkExternal link
Saalfeld, R. K., & Mann, L. (2024) 'Und dann ging alles seinen sozialistischen Gang'. Paarbildung, Paarwelten und Umgang mit Eigentum in Ostdeutschland. In A. Kasten (Hrsg.), Feministische Postsozialismusforschung. Eine Spurensuche. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.
Saalfeld, R. K., & Scholz, S. (2023). Wer das Geld hat, hat die Macht? Verhandlungen von Property Gaps in Paarwelten. In P. I. Villa Braslavsky (Hrsg.), Polarisierte Welten. Verhandlungen des 41. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Bielefeld 2022, https://publikationen.soziologie.de/index.php/kongressband_2022/article/view/1569/1751.
Scholz, S. (2022). Familiale Care-Arbeit - eine Angelegenheit der Frauen? Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede im deutschen Ost-West-Vergleich. Bürger & Staat (3), 99–106.