Active projects

Directed by : Daniela Jopp

Most people want to become old, but nobody wants to be old. This ambiguity, dominating much of the discussion on old age, reflects the mismatch between wanting a long life, but being afraid of potential age-related physical, cognitive and social consequences. Nonetheless, reaching very old age has already become a new reality in most developed countries, with the very old representing the fastest growing group of the population. This longevity revolution will lead to notable challenges for the person, families, and society, urgently calling for solutions.

Dirigé par: Jean-Michel Bonvin et Barbara Lucas

L'objectif du présent mandat est d'évaluer l'action du Bureau d'Information Sociale (BIS) du canton de Genève, en termes d'orientation des bénéficiaires et de lutte contre le non-recours.

Directed by: Jean-Michel Bonvin

INVOLVE is a project whose main objective is to contribute to the development of scalable and generalizable strategies to reduce social, economic and political inequalities.

Directed by: Stéphane Cullati, Piet Bracke, Claudine Burton-Jeangros, Sorana Toma

This research project aims to understand how health and social policies can reduce social and life course inequalities in preventive healthcare practices during middle and early old age. Preventive practices, like cancer screening, are crucial for healthy aging, but inequalities in accessing these practices have remained persistent in high-income countries for decades.

Directed by : Felix Bühlmann

Under the direction of Felix Bühlmann, a team of researchers and IT specialists from Obelis and the University of Lausanne is working on a sustainable, data protection-sensitive and open-source management of statistics on Switzerland's elites.

Directed by : Nicky Le Feuvre & Isabelle Zinn

By exploring different interrelated aspects of gendered ageing at work through the lens of menopause as a socially and institutionally embedded experience, HAWK will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the impact of ageing on women’s experiences at work and will reveal their diverse coping strategies.

Directed by: Rafael Lalive, Svitlana Tsymbaliuk

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war had detrimental consequences for Ukraine and its labor market. In this context, effective matching between workers and suitable employment opportunities is central in re-building the labor market.

Directed by: Anatolia Batruch

How do psychological differences between social classes affect our relationships? Although the study of social classes is part of a long tradition of research in sociology, we still know little about the consequences of psychological differences between people of different socio-economic status.

Directed by : Andreas Ihle

In the near future, our aging societies will have to face a dramatic increase in the number of dementia cases. Addressing this crucial public health challenge, the cognitive reserve concept postulates that early and lifelong experiences determine individuals’ capacity to cope with cognitive pathologies in subsequent life phases.

Directed by : Roberta Antonini Philippe, Fabrice Brodard, Jacques-Antoine Gauthier, Tina Stahel

This research project aims to study the relationships and experiences of young people in sport. These relationships and experiences can be built around camaraderie, mutual support and shared interests.

Directed by: Caroline Roberts

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the concept of ‘digital trust’ as a fundamental component of the health of digital societies and their capacity to effectively exploit data for the common good.

Directed by : Dimitri Konstantas, Katarzyna Wac & Matthias Kliegel

AGE-INT is the largest national research project to address the challenges and opportunities of demographic change in a practical manner with a trans- and interdisciplinary project team in the three largest language regions of Switzerland. The objective of the project is to identify knowledge and examples of best practices in selected priority areas, both nationally and internationally, and to make them visible and accessible for a broad public and decision makers.

Directed by : Stephanie Steinmetz

This project will investigate together with highly renowned research teams from nine universities and research centres across Europe, why and to what extent ethnic, racial, and religious minorities are exposed to discriminatory behaviour and prejudicial attitudes in multiple life domains since birth. They will study how this continuous exposure accumulates over the life course and perpetuates minorities’ subordinate position over generations. For societies that strive to be inclusive and guarantee equal opportunities for all their members, this structural and cumulative pattern of disadvantage is a major concern. Among others the main contribution of EQUALSTRENGTH is to investigate cumulative and structural forms of discrimination, outgroup prejudice, and hate crimes, among others from a cross-setting and intersectional perspective. 

Directed by: Guy Elcheroth

Over the last decades, an increasing range of countries, including Switzerland, have addressed systematic maltreatment in state institutions, but empirical research on how dealing with the past can effectively benefit care alumni and their families is still relatively sparse.

Directed by : Yvan Droz, Valérie Golaz & Clémentine Rossier

Project FamilEA seeks to understand the dynamics of family transformation in East Africa by combining four strategies: 1) building a common interdisciplinary conceptual foundation; 2) combining a range of methods from across the social sciences and the humanities to build a common core dataset; 3) implementing, in two neighbouring countries with distinct family patterns, a comparative study design involving men and women, younger and middle-aged adults, capital cities and countryside, and various socio-economic groups and trajectories; 4) including discipline-specific individual projects that will stand in close dialogue with one another and with the core theory and data sets.In particular, the project focuses on Kenya and Uganda, neighbouring countries where demographic changes show a mixed picture of similarities and differences.

Directed by : Nathalie Muller Mirza, Tania Zittoun & Alex Gillespie

Societal crises are not only macro phenomena; they are also micro and personal. While the macro social impact of societal crises has received a lot of research attention, there has been less examination of how people navigate their own life course through societal crises.

Directed by Jonas Masdonati

In a volatile labor market, individuals are confronted with diverse types of career transitions. Among these, involuntary career changes are critical moments in the career path. They can be time-consuming and require considerable adjustment, posing challenges not only for the individuals but also for their personal environment and the career professionals supporting them.

Directed by : Caroline Roberts et Jimena Sobrino Piazza

Researchers from the LIVES Centre and the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS) have been collaborating since 2023 on research and developmental work investigating the methodological challenges of conducting Time Use Surveys (TUS) online. TUS, which are designed to measure the amount of time people spend doing various activities, have traditionally been carried out by National Statistical Institutes with the help of interviewers and paper-and-pencil ‘time diaries’.

Directed by: Olivier Fillieule, Davide Morselli

The COVID-19 crisis saw countries around the world adopt unprecedented measures. These measures attracted some support, but also led to unexpectedly large gatherings, sparked multiple controversies that developed into a strong wave of protests, and generated alliances between new and established groups in the public political space. Among the European countries, the mobilisation was particularly important in France.

Directed by : Laura Bernardi

Lone parenthood is an increasingly important reality in Switzerland. The Swiss Federal Statistical Office states that one in six households with children consists of a parent who raises their children alone, at least for most of the time. Eight in nine of these families are composed of mothers, although the diversity of their backgrounds makes lone parents an increasingly heterogeneous group.​​​​​​​

Directed by : Joëlle Darwiche, Laura Bernardi, Sabrina Burgat & Elli Mosayebi

The overall project focuses on post-separation custody arrangements and their impact on children and will contribute to the identification of risk and resilience factors for child well-being after parental union dissolution in Switzerland. Building on the insights of social demography, psychology, architecture and housing studies, and law, this interdisciplinary project investigates the interdependent effects of four key dimensions on child well- being: socio-structural (social inequalities within and between families), relational (interpersonal relationships between family members), spatial (housing-mobility arrangements), and legal (legal regulations and court decisions).

Directed by : Matthias Kliegel, Jürgen Maurer, Maud Wieczorek

An Online Modified Delphi Study and Survey Among Academic Thought Leaders, Policy Practitioners and Active Researchers in Gerontology.

Directed by : Andreas Ihle

The Apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele is a major genetic risk factor for pathological cognitive development in old age. Potentially relevant in this regard, the cognitive reserve concept postulates that early and lifelong experiences, including educational and occupational attainment, and leisure activities throughout the lifespan, determine the individual’s capacity to cope with cognitive pathologies.

Directed by : Jürgen Maurer

This project will analyze existing and new (to be collected) data related to end-of-life planning of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), a nationally representative survey of adults aged 50 years and older living in Switzerland.

Directed by Eric Widmer and Christian Staerklé

Many young adults face conflicting demands and expectations regarding their identities as members of social categories whose status in society is debated and contested, while expressing anxiety about the ties that link them with other persons. The present proposal offers an analysis of personal networks and social identities of young adults during the eventful 2020-2023 period in Switzerland.

Directed by Jörg Stolz

This project conducts a second wave of the National Congregations Study (NCS) Switzerland to describe and help explain Switzerland’s changing religious diversity.

Directed by : Davide Morselli & Kevin Durrheim

This multidisciplinary research collaboration will bring insight and methodological development on how opinions get polarized in the media and social media in Switzerland and Southern Africa. We propose a novel method, using Natural Language Processing and grounded in social psychological theory, for studying how social networks develop around opinions and become polarized. Our overall objective is to study polarization in a framework that jointly considers opinion-based and social structure definitions of polarization. 

Directed by : Matthias Studer

Sequence analysis is one of the key approaches to study processes and trajectories from a life-course perspective. It provides a holistic view of trajectories by creating a typology that can be then used in subsequent analyses or simply to describe these trajectories. Despite its increasing uses in several disciplines, sequence analysis still faces several long-standing issues and limitations. This research project aims to address them to consolidate social science research making use of the methodology

Directed by : Michael Grätz

The project aims at developing novel ways to measure equality of opportunity using survey data from Switzerland, Germany, the UK, the US, and administrative data from Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden.

Directed by : Marion Repetti

While poverty is an economic and social status, it is also an experience. This research project, that will take place in two rural and mountainous regions of Switzerland and the U.S., seeks to understand the experience of poorer older people in such contexts. Existing literature shows that there are significant levels of poverty among older people in Switzerland and the U.S. National welfare states, in combination with advantages and disadvantages accumulated over the life courses, and statuses such as gender and ethnicity, shape the types of economic deprivation that older people can face. In addition, support from private and public organizations (here after ‘social organizations’) and the social environment (family, neighbors, and friends) is often critical for older populations--something that the recent pandemic has greatly brought to light. Some authors additionally point to the influence of the geographic environment on the living conditions of older people. However, existing analyses give little attention to the experiences that poorer older people have of poverty, particularly in rural areas. And yet, poorer older people’s experiential knowledge, i.e., knowledge they acquired by experiencing poverty themselves, could contribute to a better understanding of poverty in later life in rural context, and of what could improve poorer older people’s lives. The present research project addresses these gaps by exploring the experience of poverty among older people living in the Swiss alpine canton of Valais and the Appalachian region of Virginia in the U.S.

Directed by : Michelle Cottier & Eric Widmer

This project aims to contribute to a better understanding of gender dynamics in divorce by studying the impact of different concepts of gender equality present in the legal context on the negotiation of divorce agreements between different-sex couples with children in Switzerland.

Directed by : Daniela Jopp, Stefano Cavalli, François Richard Herrmann, Armin von Gunten

This Swiss-wide study of centenarians - SWISS100 - examines the risks, strengths and specific needs of today's very elderly population in Switzerland and helps us to prepare for the future. The study includes a sample of Swiss centenarians and their representatives from the three main language regions.

Directed by Felix Bühlmann

This project seeks to analyze how new actors enter the Swiss financial field and how they try to assert themselves against the established bankers.

Directed by : Paolo Ghisletta

This research is inspired by the profound demographic changes that have become increasingly acute in the past decades. With substantial gains in life expectancy, the World population is rapidly aging, and in the industrialized nations, older adults are progressively becoming the dominant part of the population. In parallel, the Western nations are experiencing a concomitant reduction in the incidence of dementia. Thus, the need for understanding normative aging comes to the fore.

Directed by : Raphaël Lalive

The Covid-19 pandemic has inflicted a lot of mental and economic pain on the world. Both the illness itself, and the fear of contracting the illness generate distress, but so do the lockdown and social distancing measures to contain the spread of the virus. As vaccines against the virus are becoming available, the immediate and most important consequences of Covid-19 on health systems could soon be averted, but key challenges remain. This project proposes new evidence on the role of policies vs the illness in shaping mental health, and how information and cognition training support job finding in a labor market scarred by the crisis.

Directed by : Daniel Stoecklin

Ce projet de recherche vise à comprendre comment l"'Observation générale sur les enfants en situation de rue" des Nations Unies est mise en pratique dans les centres de soins dédiés à la protection et/ou à la réinsertion des enfants en situation de rue, en se concentrant sur le Brésil et la Thaïlande.

Directed by : Dario Spini and Alain Plattet

Involve residents in the organization of their city. This is at the heart of the "Cause Commune" project, which the LIVES Centre is carrying out in collaboration with the City of Chavannes-près-Renens

Directed by : Flavia Fossati

This project examines the attitudes of the Swiss population, especially native parents, and teaching staff, towards policy measures to promote equal opportunities for immigrant students. Moreover, this study also examines the reasons for the failure or success of some important reforms to promote equal opportunities for immigrants (e.g., in the cantons of Geneva, Zurich, and Neuchâtel). These reasons for the failure or success of these policies may be related to the preferences of the native population and those of teachers as well as to the strategies, preferences and decisions of political actors in the educational field.

Directed by : Laura Bernardi

Parental separation and post-separation family changes are periods of transition for children. To help them adapt to these changes and find a balance within their new family homes (single-parent and/or reconstituted), the professionals working with the child can play an important role in strengthening psycho-social and economic resources and providing a favourable legal framework for the child and his or her family.

Directed by : Rafael Lalive & Fabrizio Colella

The project analyzes the behavior of firms, workers, and job seekers during the pandemic and sheds light on how the Covid-19 pandemic changed global trade and consequently the Swiss labor market.

Directed by : Michelle Cottier, Eric Widmer & Gaelle Aeby

This project aims at investigating the practices and challenges associated with the shift to digital justice during the Covid-19 pandemic in family proceedings in Switzerland with a special focus on separations and divorces.

Directed by : Giuliano Bonoli & Juliana Chueri

Digital labor platforms are transforming work by enabling widespread use of piecework and on-demand labor (also known as gig-work). Estimates show that 11% of the European workforce is already engaged in platform work (Brancati et al., 2020), and that the sector is seeing a 10% annual growth (Stephany et al., 2021). This has raised concerns about consequences for job quality and workers’ well-being. But while platform work has become subject to significant research interest, there has been no systematic study on how welfare institutions shape the quantity and quality of platform work. This project fills this gap through a comparative study across European countries.

Directed by : Eric Widmer, Eva Nada, Marlène Sapin, Gil Viry, Ivan de Carlo & Myriam Girardin 

Educational and occupational choices are not made by individuals in isolation but, on the contrary, in interaction with significant members of their personal networks, particularly friends and family. However, the importance of the social capital generated by these networks for educational pathways and entry into working life remains largely unexplored in Switzerland. The proposed research aims to identify the links between the professional and educational situation of young adults in Switzerland, their personal networks and the social capital that these networks generate.

Directed by : Andrea Rea, Racapé Judith, Raynault Marie-France, Yves-Laurent Jackson & Claudine Burton-Jeangros

This G3 project aims to highlight research conducted on the effects of social and health inequalities on the transmission of COVID-19 in order to prepare an in-depth and interdisciplinary comparative study of the effects of these measures on vulnerable populations in Montreal, Geneva, and Brussels.

Directed by : Emilie Rosenstein, Aline Duvoisin, Nicolas Pons-Vignon & Matthias Studer

From spring 2020, Covid-19 increased socio-economic inequality as never before. But little is known about its long-term consequences. The project investigates how social policy was redefined to mitigate effects of the pandemic.

Directed by : Eric Widmer

L’Institut de recherches sociologiques (IRS) de la Faculté des sciences de la société héberge à partir du 1er octobre 2015 l’Observatoire des familles. Ce dernier a pour but de fournir des informations scientifiques précises sur l'état des familles et de leurs difficultés à Genève. La volonté à la base du projet est de promouvoir la politique familiale à Genève en rassemblant, partageant, collectant et analysant les informations sur les familles. L'Observatoire des familles est l'organe en charge de la recherche de l'association Avenir Familles créée par Sylvie Reverdin-Raffestin, ex-directrice de Pro Juventute Genève, Danielle Jaques, ex-codirectrice de l'Office protestant de consultations conjugales et familiales, et Eric D. Widmer, professeur à l’IRS. L'Observatoire des familles entend se profiler comme un centre de soutien et de compétences sur les familles genevoises et développer une expertise en la matière pour devenir un interlocuteur indispensable aux autorités cantonales dans l’élaboration des politiques publiques familiales de demain. Les activités de recherche sont coordonnées au niveau de la Faculté des Sciences de la Société par le professeur Eric D. Widmer (directeur de l'Observatoire) et la professeure Clémentine Rossier (membre du Conseil scientifique). Ces recherches s’inscrivent dans le cadre du Pôle de recherche national LIVES, qui questionne la vulnérabilité dans les parcours de vie, ainsi que dans des collaborations interfacultaires (notamment avec la Faculté de droit) et sont soutenues par le Rectorat de l’Université de Genève.

Directed by : Olivier Fillieule

Does participation in a broad social movement have any chance of lastingly transforming the relationship to politics and the modes of participation of groups in retreat? And if so, does this necessarily translate into an attraction towards so-called populist parties and the model of illiberal democracies?

Directed by : Marieke Voorpostel, Núria Sánchez-Mira, Stephanie Steinmetz & Leen Vandecasteele

This project will analyse how the pandemic affected young people’s wellbeing, looking at who the groups most at risk were and examining policies and programmes put in place to support young people during this period.

Directed by Mattia Vacchiano

The COVID-19 pandemic has given teleworking a strong impulse, making it a more important object of research than ever before. However, research has yet to provide adequate answers on its consequences.

Directed by : Daniel Oesch

Over the last decade, there have been growing concerns that European countries are becoming polarized between prosperous metropolitan areas and declining industrial and rural regions. While major cities successfully transitioned to the service economy dominated by high-skilled jobs, employment opportunities decreased in many smaller towns and peripheral regions. This geographical divide also emerges in the rise of the radical right, Trump’s election, the Brexit vote or the Gilets Jaunes movement - and has been interpreted as “the revenge of the places that don’t matter” (Rodríguez-Pose 2018).In this context, our project raises two questions. The first question asks how the occupational structure changed between 1980 and 2020 across regions in Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland. While there is much research on job polarization at the national level, there is little evidence at the regional level - and the few existing studies point to growing regional gaps within countries. Our project aims to provide systematic evidence on whether regions have drifted apart over the last 40 years in terms of job opportunities - and thus the life chances - provided to their residents. The second question asks how unequal shifts in regions’ job structure affect political attitudes. Our focus is on attitudes towards globalization and thus on one of the defining cleavages of our time, which is expressed in conflictual opinions over migration, multiculturalism and supranational integration. Our goal is to see whether citizens living in declining regions are more likely to develop cultural grievances on these issues. We thus test the claim that unequal economic trajectories across regions are a prime driver of the cultural backlash associated with the radical right.Our project addresses these two questions by using large-scale individual-level datasets that cover 40 years and allow us to distinguish long-term shifts at the geographical level of districts, counties, departments and cantons. In parallel, we use long-running panel datasets that allow us to account for sorting - if people move to regions based on job opportunities and cultural attitudes. The ambition is to combine insights from sociology, political science, geography and economics to enhance our knowledge of how job shifts at the regional level contributed to the widening cultural cleavage in Europe. 

Directed by Georges Guiella & Clémentine Rossier

This model aims to assess the impact of contraceptive use on the empowerment of women aged 15 to 49, using recent longitudinal PMA data and sequential analysis. It will focus on three West African countries (Burkina Faso, Niger, Côte d'Ivoire) and two East African countries (Uganda and Kenya).