>
> Two vacancies for fully funded 4-year Phd-Projects in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam
> (FMG, Department of Sociology and Anthropology)
>
> The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG) is the largest educational and research
> institution in the social sciences in the Netherlands. The Faculty serves 8,000 students in numerous
> Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Communication
> Science, Psychology, Social Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, and
> Educational Sciences. Academic staff is employed in education as well as research. There are over
> 1,200 employees at the Faculty, which resides in a number of buildings in the centre of Amsterdam.
>
> The Department of Sociology and Anthropology is one of the Departments in the FMG. Research and
> education are carried out by special institutes. The College of Social Sciences (CSS) and the Graduate
> School for the Social Sciences (GSSS) are responsible for the undergraduate and graduate teaching
> programmes in the social sciences. Research takes place under the aegis of the Amsterdam Institute for
> Social Science Research (AISSR), a multidisciplinary research institute.
>
> Both PhD-projects will be carried out at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research
> (AISSR), Program Group Institutions, Inequalities and Internationalisation, and form part of the
> research project HOWCOME: The Interplay Between the Upward Trend in Home-Ownership and
> Income Inequality in Advanced Welfare Democracies: Interacting Causes and Consequences of Social
> Inequality in Different Institutional Settings. The project is financed by the European Research
> Council (ERC) in the framework of an ERC Starting Grant.
>
> General project description
> This research project aims to be a comprehensive interdisciplinary study into the so far unrecognised
> interplay between two major social trends of the post-war period: the upward trend in economic
> inequality, and the increase of owner-occupation. Using a comparative perspective, the project aims at
> constructing a unified account by means of a systematic analysis of:
>
> 1. the ‘driving forces’ of both social trends;
> 2. the ways in which the upswing in economic inequality and the expansion of home-ownership
> might reinforce or counteract each other and hence lead to a redistribution of social and
> economic risks;
> 3. how the statistical relationships between variables at the macro-level play out in diverse
> institutional settings, looking through a more in-depth historical-comparative lens;
> 4. how the macro-level relationships between both social trends are negotiated by households
> and individuals as their housing, labour market and family trajectories unfold;
> 5. how households and individuals negotiate between their perceptions of the economic benefits
> and risks associated with home-ownership and the ‘real-life’-opportunities and constraints;
> and
> 6. how these norms have changed over time as a result of increased income inequality and/or
> increasing home-ownership rates.
>
> The scope of this project ranges from large-scale quantitative analysis of country-level data and of
> individual retrospective and prospective housing, labour and family trajectories to a comparative in-
> depth case study of institutional developments in a selection of countries. One of its aims is to tie
> relevant findings from different disciplines (sociology, economics, political sciences, housing studies,
> demography) together and show that studying these trends from different angles leads to the
> formulation of new and exciting research questions, which also have a clear policy relevance. Finally,
>
> the interplay between the upswing in income inequality and the rise of home-ownership is analysed at
> different layers of society, tying them together in a systematic way. Large-scale social changes are
> linked to specific institutional settings, but also to the attitudes of people living in these institutional
> environments and to individual life courses.
>
> The project is divided into four subprojects, two of these projects are carried out by PhD-students, who
> will work together closely. There will also be co-operation with the members of another team,
> working on a different, but related ERC Starting Grant (HOUWEL: Housing Markets and Welfare
> State Transformations: How Family Housing Property Is Reshaping Welfare Regimes, Principal
> Investigator Dr. Richard Ronald). This means that there is a significant amount of resources for
> comparative housing research concentrated at the University of Amsterdam, enabling real and
> significant progress on the domain.
>
> HOWCOME 1: Home-ownership as a ‘driving force’ of income inequality, and vice versa
> The main objective of this subproject is to link the literature on the driving forces of the upswing in
> income inequality to literature on the ‘silent’ home-ownership revolution. The idea that home-
> ownership could be an important driver of income inequality is however only the starting point, as this
> subproject is explicitly aimed at analysing the interplay, over time, between these two major social
> trends: how they might reinforce or counteract each other, depending on the institutional context.
> Historical country-level data are assembled from a range of international organisations, from large-sale
> comparative surveys, from comparative welfare state datasets compiled by researchers and from
> national institutes. The aim is to compile the most theoretically informative dataset possible for the
> largest number of countries, covering the longest possible time span. In order to find out how
> statistical relationships at the macro-level play out in diverse institutional settings, HOWCOME1 will
> also look at a selected number of countries through a comparative-historical lens, taking account of
> ‘country-specific’ characteristics, such as the (changing) meaning of home-ownership and
> developments in the housing market, using ISSP-data (International Social Survey Programme). The
> link between statistical evidence on housing, income inequality and their driving forces on the one
> hand and the attitudes of households and individuals on the other hand is hence traced by looking at
> changes over time in the public opinion with regard to social housing.
>
> Requirements:
>
> Master’s or Research Master’s Degree in one of the social sciences (or expectation of
> completion in the near future);
> Affinity with quantitative methods and techniques in the social sciences, and of the analysis of
> large-scale data sources;
> Interest for interdisciplinary research, specifically on the domain of housing;
> Willingness to give English-language presentations and to publish in the English language,
> and to teach in the field of Social Sciences (in Dutch and/or English);
> Language competencies other languages than Dutch or English will be considered as an
> advantage.
>
> •
>
> •
>
> HOWCOME 2: Attitudes towards housing in Europe
> HOWCOME 2 is aimed at analysing aggregate attitudes of Europeans towards welfare provision in
> general and housing policies in particular. This project will primarily use data from the European
> Social Survey (ESS) and aims at explaining cross-national differences. Concerning the link between
> macro-level information on income inequality and housing regimes on the hand and individual
> attitudes on the other hand, items on welfare attitudes are available in ESS Round 4 (2007-2008), from
> a module on ‘Welfare Attitudes in a Changing Europe’. The ESS furthermore offers the possibility to
> add additional modules to the questionnaire. HOWCOME 2 will apply for such a module on Attitudes
> towards housing. Additionally, the recent Eurobarometer on Poverty and Social Exclusion also
> contains items on housing and housing policy.
>
> Requirements:
>
> Master’s or Research Master’s Degree in one of the social sciences (or expectation of
> completion in the near future);
> Affinity with quantitative methods and techniques in the social sciences, and of the analysis of
> large-scale data sources;
> Interest for interdisciplinary research, specifically on the domain of housing;
> Willingness to give English-language presentations and to publish in the English language,
> and to teach in the field of Social Sciences (in Dutch and/or English);
> Language competencies other languages than Dutch or English will be considered as an
> advantage.
>
>
> The starting date for the project will be February 1st, 2012. The full-time appointment is initially for a
> period of one year; in case of satisfactory performance it will be extended by a maximum of a further
> three years (i.e. a total of four years) leading to the completion of a PhD. The gross monthly salary
> will be € 2,042 in the first year and € 2,612 in the fourth year in the case of a full-time position (38 hrs
> / week) plus 8% holiday allowance, 8.3% end-of-year allowance, in conformity with the Collective
> Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities.
>
> Applicants should send their application, consisting of a motivation letter explaining their interest and
> commitment, a CV and two letters of reference, by email to application-soca-fmg@??? before 31
> December 2011. Please specify in the subject line of your email for which position you apply. All
> correspondence should be in English and by email. Further enquiries concerning the project itself can
> be obtained from Dr. Caroline Dewilde, the Principal Investigator of this project
> (C.L.Dewilde@???). Information on the AISSR can be obtained from www.aissr.uva.nl.
>
> The official job announcement can be found at: http://www.english.uva.nl/vacancies/vacancies.cfm.
>
> _
