Our team and Partners

Project Coordinator - Dr. Marge Unt

As a kid, I never wanted to grow up. To me, the grown-up world was not something to look for. What is this "work" they always claim to have? Why do they refuse to run around in fields and find shapes in clouds? And why do adults assume that they know it all and are still so stressed? Now, I have made this transition and have entered the world of my own family and work. However, I am still deeply interested in how youth experience becoming an adult in different contexts.

 

Project Co-coordinator - Prof. Dr. Michael Gebel

When I grew up, Germany experienced serious mass unemployment and was called the “sick man of Europe”. I saw friends suffering from unemployment and insecure jobs. But there were also success stories of friends coping with such a situation and also escaping from it. Nowadays, after a period of policy reforms, the situation is better in Germany but there are still many problems. These observations raised my interest in understanding how youths avoid getting into trouble and which policies help.

 

 

Get to know all researchers that are engaged in the project. Read the personal story of each researcher by clicking on her/his picture.

Sonia Bertolini

Sonia Bertolini

Position: Associate Professor in Economic Sociology

Field of study: Sociology

Research topics: Atypical employment; transition to adulthood; youth and labour market; work-family balance and conflict

Do you know that Italy is the European country in which people leave home latest?

And it is also the country where people are considered young until 40 years old.

This situation raises the question of how and when one becomes an adult in different institutional contexts. On this basis my team and I are interested in studying the relationship between labour market insecurity and housing autonomy. We use, and I really like, a mixed method approach, correlating numbers about youth labour market participation with the life histories of young people whom we are interviewing around Europe, with the collaboration of the other teams.

I think that improving the chances of young people is one of the most important aspects for the future of society.

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Advisory board:

Hans-Peter Blossfeld
Caroline Dewilde
Duncan Gallie
Massimiliano Mascherini
Jale Tosun
Gianfranco Bordone
Laura Orestano
Franco Chiaramonte
Luca Chiapella
Vanessa Di Paola
Virginie Mora
Ruth Santos-Brien
Rita Bergstein

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