Dr. Asaf Levanon
I am a senior lecturer in the department of sociology and the head of the center for the study of poverty and social exclusion at the University of Haifa. My research agenda bridges two central yet distinct sociological research fields. First, I am a social stratification and mobility scholar, specializing in comparative analysis of poverty, gender and ethnic inequality. Second, I am a life-course scholar, with an expertise in the longitudinal analysis of the interplay between the family and work domains. Bringing these two streams of research together is the overarching question driving my work, which is how institutions affect life-course outcomes. In addressing this question, I build on a key intuition guiding life-course scholarship, which sees human action as dynamic, relational and contextual. I am particularly interested in gaps across groups that emerge through the progression of individuals through multiple roles during the life-course. Attuned to the relational aspect of human behavior, I also study how relationships with kin and community shape decisions and outcomes of individuals across the life-course. Inspired by stratification research, my work furthermore emphasizes that human action takes place in the context of a diverse set of opportunities and constraints, which are shaped and regulated by the state.
I am a senior lecturer in the department of sociology and the head of the center for the study of poverty and social exclusion at the University of Haifa. My research agenda bridges two central yet distinct sociological research fields. First, I am a social stratification and mobility scholar, specializing in comparative analysis of poverty, gender and ethnic inequality. Second, I am a life-course scholar, with an expertise in the longitudinal analysis of the interplay between the family and work domains. Bringing these two streams of research together is the overarching question driving my work, which is how institutions affect life-course outcomes. In addressing this question, I build on a key intuition guiding life-course scholarship, which sees human action as dynamic, relational and contextual. I am particularly interested in gaps across groups that emerge through the progression of individuals through multiple roles during the life-course. Attuned to the relational aspect of human behavior, I also study how relationships with kin and community shape decisions and outcomes of individuals across the life-course. Inspired by stratification research, my work furthermore emphasizes that human action takes place in the context of a diverse set of opportunities and constraints, which are shaped and regulated by the state.