Active Projects

Reducing social and life course inequalities in preventive practices

Dirigé par Stéphane Cullati, Piet Bracke, Claudine Burton-Jeangros, Sorana Toma, Katrijn Delaruelle

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.

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The Empty Office: An International Study of Teleworking

Dirigé par Mattia Vacchiano

The COVID-19 pandemic has given teleworking a strong impulse, making it a more important object of research than ever before. It is forecast that the digitization of work will become increasingly important in the coming years and will transform the lives of both workers and firms. However, research has yet to provide adequate answers on the consequences of teleworking.

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Educational Partnerships for Young Elite Athletes

Dirigé par Antoine Lefebvre, Eric Widmer

Programs designed to foster entry into elite sports engage a critical mass of 10,000 young people (and children) nationwide, integrating them into an ambitious “three-pronged initiative” that combines academic studies, intensive training, and personal fulfillment. These programs are unique in that they involve coaches and parents in the educational process and promote ambitious, comprehensive, and long-term educational commitments within the sports context.Little is known today about these “sports education”…

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Longitudinal educational achievements: reducing inequalities (LEARN)

Dirigé par Laure Bernardi

Even though Europe is home to some of the most highly educated societies in the world, deep inequalities in education remain both within and between countries in Europe. LEARN will expand our understanding of these issues by collating existing evidence and generating new knowledge on educational inequalities, based on high-quality longitudinal data, and formulate practical evidence-based guidance to allow policy makers across Europe to address them on a solid empirical ground. To this end, LEARN will use an…

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Uncovering the anatomy of discrimination

Dirigé par Michele Pellizzari

Identifying and understanding discrimination is notoriously difficult because it requires disentangling legitimate differences in ability or productivity from differences in outcomes due to discrimination. In this project, we plan to use detailed administrative records about the bar exam to access the legal profession in Italy to study discrimination along various important dimensions.

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Daily LIVES

Dirigé par Caroline Robertes et Jimena Sobrino Piazza

Methodological Challenges in Time Use MeasurementResearchers 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.

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Health & Ageing at Work (HAWK): A Study of Menopause in Switzerland

Dirigé par Nicky Le Feuvre & Isabelle Zinn

Demographic ageing has led to a rapid rise in the proportion of middle-aged workers in the Swiss labour market. This trend is fuelled by the increasing employment rate of women aged 45+ and by later retirement ages for men and women alike. The target of extending working life (EWL) has been on the Swiss and international policy agenda for several decades. Beyond ensuring the viability of pension systems, these policies aim to mitigate labour shortages. However, research suggests that EWL objectives do not…

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An intersectional perspective on discriminations: A mixed-methods approach

Dirigé par Ruxandra Oana Ciobanu

In Switzerland, as in other Western countries, individuals can be subject to discrimination in all areas of life. Individual characteristics such as age, gender and migrant background can increase the likelihood of perceived discrimination or, conversely, protect them from it. These forms of discrimination have been studied, but the intersection between individual characteristics such as age, gender and migration background and how they shape perceived discrimination across groups is less well known in Switzerland…

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Violence in sport in the Canton of Vaud - Focus on young sportspeople (VSV)

Dirigé par 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. 

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Cause Commune - Involving residents in the organization of their city

Dirigé par 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 has been carrying out in collaboration with the City of Chavannes-près-Renen since 2019 and, since 2025, with the municipality of Prilly and the association Lavaux Patrimoine Mondial UNESCO.

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(Un)changing gender relations and family diversity in Switzerland

Dirigé par Stephanie Steinmetz, Gesine Fuchs, Marco Giesselmann, Irene Kriesi, Jean-Marie Le Goff, Jörg Rössel, Clémentine Rossier, Katja Rost, Nuria Sanchez, Isabelle Zinn

GenFam is the first comprehensive project to systematically examine six key societal challenges related to persistent gender inequalities in paid and unpaid work, increasing family diversity, and declining fertility in Switzerland. Conducted in collaboration with ten partners from seven Swiss universities, the project adopts a comparative, cross-national, and multi-method research design that integrates quantitative evidence with in-depth qualitative analysis.Structured around four work packages and eight sub…

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Improving Female Migrants’ Labor Market Positioning

Dirigé par Stephanie Steinmetz

An Intersectional Approach to Occupational Segregation Processes Across Countries and Over Time (PROFEM)Considering the increasing ethnical diversity of the female workforce, the urgency to clarify the impact of gender and migration background on labour market outcomes is self-evident. Promoting gender equality and empowering women is an important societal goal. However, despite the striking gains of women in the educational arena and various measures to tackle gender inequalities, the gender wage gap and other…

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Lives after residential youth care

Dirigé par 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. 

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The multiple paths of lone parenthood

Dirigé par 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.

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Accès aux droits : Mandat d’évaluation du Bureau d’information sociale (GE)

Dirigé par Bonvin Jean-Michel 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.

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Aging migrants Navigating Care and Health: Obstacles, Resources and reserves (ANCHOR)

Dirigé par Paolo Martinelli, Francesca Bosisio, Dario Spini

Access to and experience with the healthcare system in later life can reflect a lifelong accumulation of social inequalities. Some older adults indeed face obstacles when trying to use formal healthcare services. In response to these challenges, they may rely on social support networks related to health. The dynamic interactions between the barriers encountered and the resources and reserves mobilized to meet healthcare needs are at the heart of the ANCHOR project. Understanding these dynamics is essential for…

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Harnessing Generative AI for questionnaire design, evaluation and testing

Dirigé par Patrick Sturgis, Caroline Roberts, Thomas Robinson, Alice McGee

It is widely agreed that Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) will transform conventional practice across the spectrum of service industries in the near future. It seems unlikely this will exclude survey research. Understanding how to capitalise on this potential is a key priority. The proposed research will assess the utility of GenAI – specifically, Large Language Models (LLMs) - for improving the quality and cost-efficiency of questionnaire design, evaluation and testing (QDET). The research questions are…

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Modelling the impact of contraception on women’s empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa using recent longitudinal PMA data and sequence analysis

Dirigé par 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).

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Welcome to your future: Centenarians of Switzerland

Dirigé par Daniela Jopp & Anna-Rita Stoffel

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,…

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For trustful, participatory and inclusive public policies

Dirigé par 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. 

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Open Elite Data Project

Dirigé par 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.

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Improving Job Search and Occupational Matching in a Turbulent Labor Market in Ukraine

Dirigé par Rafael Lalive

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.

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Social Class Intergroup Model

Dirigé par 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. 

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Cognitive reserve accumulation pathways and pathological cognitive development

Dirigé par 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.

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Digital Trust

Dirigé par 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. 

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AGE-INT (Geneva work packages)

Dirigé par 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.

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EqualStrength

Dirigé par 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…

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FamiLEA : The Remaking of the Family in East Africa

Dirigé par 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…

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Societal Crises and Personal Sense-Making: Transitions, Mobility, and Imagination Across the Lifecourse

Dirigé par Nathalie Muller Mirza, Tania Zittoun, Oliver Pedersen, Alex Gillespie & Maeva Perrin

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.

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Unfolding of involuntary career changes

Dirigé par 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.

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TIDE - What happens when the tide recedes? Transformations and Impacts of the Dynamics of Engagement

Dirigé par 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.

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FamyCH: Family Custody Arrangements and Child Well-Being in Switzerland

Dirigé par 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…

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APOE-related pathological cognitive development and cognitive reserve accumulation pathways: a detailed lifespan perspective

Dirigé par 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 (Stern, 2002; Stern et al., 2020) 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. However, research addressing different inter-individual difference…

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How did COVID-19 reframe end-of-life planning of older adults in Switzerland? Preferences, Communication, Knowledge, and Behaviors Regarding End of Life and End-of-life Planning before and during the COVID-19 crisis

Dirigé par Jürgen Maurer

Since the rapid spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), older adults with and without preexisting medical conditions have been identified early as particularly vulnerable to the physiological effects of the virus. 

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Turbulent times: Personal Networks and Social Identities of Swiss Young Adults (IdNet)

Dirigé par Eric Widmer, 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. 

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PONs - People-Opinion Networks: A study of polarization in word embeddings and social networks in Switzerland and Southern Africa.

Dirigé par 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…

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Strengthening Sequence Analysis

Dirigé par 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

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Liberal and radical equality of opportunity (EQUALOPP)

Dirigé par 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.

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Poverty in Later Life in Rural and Mountainous Switzerland and United States : A Comparative Case Study

Dirigé par 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…

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The negociation of divorce agreements and gender (in)equality in Switzerland

Dirigé par 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.

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Transformation of Swiss Finance: an Analysis of three Power Configurations

Dirigé par Felix Bühlmann

In the 20th century, a blend of domestic personal banking and wealth management for very rich international clients, profiting from Switzerland’s banking secrecy, dominated the Swiss financial sector. Since the 1990, this business strategy was completed by the participation of the two large Swiss banks in the market of American investment banking. Two of these central pillars of Swiss banking collapsed in recent years: while the financial crisis forced UBS and Credit Suisse to retire largely from US investment…

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Metabolic and vascular risk as modifiers of the relationship between age-dependent changes in the brain and cognition

Dirigé par 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.

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Helpline calls, job finding and interview training in the Covid-19 crisis

Dirigé par Rafael 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…

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The politics of equal-opportunity policy in compulsory education in Switzerland

Dirigé par 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…

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Vulnerability of family ties and the issues involved

Dirigé par 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.

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Impacts of Covid-19 and policy measures on trade, labor demand, and job finding

Dirigé par 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.

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Practising family law in a time of crisis: inequalities in access to digital justice

Dirigé par 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.

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European welfare states and the challenge of platform work

Dirigé par 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…

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Young adults' social networks in Switzerland : Which social capital for their education and professional integration?

Dirigé par 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…

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Fit for Crisis? Social Policy in Times of COVID-19: a Longitudinal Mixed-Method Approach

Dirigé par 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.

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Observatoire des familles genevoises

Dirigé par 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…

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The COVID generation: Identifying risks and protective factors for young people's pathways through the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland

Dirigé par 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.

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Unequal shifts in regions’ job structure and the rise of cultural grievances

Dirigé par 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…

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