General information
The UPF is a public Catalan university, founded in 1990, and specialized in the social sciences although with also a large law department and a rapidly growing biomedical research centre. In terms of the social sciences, the UPF’s economics department is ranked among the top in Europe and the Political and Social Science department is ranked among the best in Southern Europe. We have also established a new programme in ‘ciencias de trabajo’ (science of work’) at the undergraduate level. Within the political and social sciences department, main research fields include public policies and regulation, comparative social policy and welfare states, research on social inequalities and poverty, demography and the family, labour markets and employment.
Research programme
The team of sociologists and demographers (for biographical information, see below) that is participating in the EQUALSOC network already has a fairly long established research record. Over the past three years we have received funding from the Spanish Ministry for Science for a comparative project on households, welfare, and employment. This year we have obtained two new research grants: one, a two-year funding from the BBVA bank for a comparative project on family formation and low fertility in Europe; two, a new three year grant from the Ministry to continue the second phase of our project on households, welfare, and employment.
Methodologically, our research is primarily based on large, international micro-data sets, including the ECHP, IALS, PISA and the International Fertility Survey, and our approach emphasises dynamic panel models and event history analytical techniques. The following gives a summary description of our research foci (note that all research activities are comparative):
- Inter-generational mobility and social inheritance in advanced societies
- Changes in employment structure, the rise of the service economy, the role of women in the labour market
- The links between households and employment behaviour with special focus on transitions and mobility and a special focus on the double role of women.
- Poverty and income distribution across households
- Family formation and fertility behaviour, and the transition to adulthood
- Comparative social policies with special emphasis on the evolution of social and family services.
International networks and collaboration
Our research group is characterized by a very rich and intense network of international collaboration. Our more demographic oriented research is linked with the Max Planck institute in Rostock, with Universitá Bocconi (Milano) and with Hans-Peter Blossfeld’s group in Bamberg, as well as with Nina Smith’s (Economics, University of Aarhus) and Daniela del Boca’s (Economics, Universitá di Torino) research groups. Our research on households, social inequalities and employment is also linked up to a host of international centres, including Sociology, University of Toronto, Institute for Social Research, Copenhagen, Statistics Canada, and University of Essex.
