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I am an Assistant Professor (Akademischer Rat) at the Chair of Sociology, with special emphasis on Social Inequalities, at the University of Bamberg. In the winter semester 2024/25 I was a Substitute Professor of Sociology with a focus on Social Stratification and Social Policy at Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute of Sociology.
In addition, I am currently a postdoc scholarship holder of the Daimler and Benz foundation to foster my research on social trust in Germany. Furthermore, I am affiliated with the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) as a senior researcher in an interdisciplinary group of economists and sociologists within the department “Education, Training and Employment over the Life Course”. In July 2019, I received my doctorate from the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg.
My research seeks to deepen our understanding of how societal transformation affects social cohesion in stratified ways, with the goal of generating knowledge that helps societies navigate change more fairly and inclusively. I primarily adopt a life course perspective to examine how inequalities in trust, vaccination, health (and its determinants), and well-being emerge. In addition, I study educational decision-making as well as the monetary and non-monetary consequences of educational dropout. More recently, I have intensified my work on how inequalities in health and well-being intersect with educational decision-making.
Thus far, I was able to acquire two grants (German Research Foundation (DFG) and Hans Böckler Foundation) enabling me to scrutinize how the COVID-19 pandemic influences health (determinants), social trust and educational decision-making.
Results of my work have been published in peer-reviewed national (e.g., Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie or Zeitschrift für Soziologie) and international journals (e.g., Acta Sociologica, The British Journal of Sociology, European Sociological Review, European Societies, Socius or Sociology of Education).
On this website you can find information on my ongoing and past third-party funded projects, publications, teaching experience and my CV.
Current Publications
Current Publications
Study Programs, Public Rankings, and College Enrollment Intentions: Results from a Survey Experiment on Study Program Content, Flexibility, and Support
Sociology of Education
(together with: Carina Toussaint, Hans Dietrich, Tobias Wolbring)
Current research on college enrollment intentions predominantly focuses on the effects of individual and university characteristics, neglecting how specific study program features affect enrollment intentions. We examine three key elements in a study program: content, flexibility, and support. These elements shape individuals’ beliefs about costs, benefits, and their success probability, thus affecting enrollment intentions. Understanding these influences helps address disparities in access to higher education because an individual’s social background shapes information processing and thus, belief formation. Using data from a factorial survey experiment conducted with German high school students in their final year of school, we apply random-intercept regression models to investigate the causal (socially stratified) effect of study program features on enrollment intentions. Our results reveal significant effects of the investigated dimensions on enrollment intentions, suggesting that adjusting program content, flexibility, and support services enhances those intentions. However, the limited effect variation across social backgrounds implies that these adjustments will not reduce the social origin gap in higher education transitions.
Link to study: https://doi.org/10.1177/00380407251356274
The gendered effects of COVID-19 on well-being: a household perspective
European Sociolgical Research
(together with: Matthias Collischon, Jacqueline Kroh)
We investigate the causal effect of COVID-19 incidence rates on changes in subjective well-being, with a special focus on gender differences. Employing longitu-dinal household data from the Panel Labour Market and Social Security (PASS) and a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach, we find an overall negative effect. This effect is stronger for individuals with caregiving responsibilities. In contrast to our theoretical expectations, our results indicate stronger negative effects of COVID-19 incidence on well-being among individuals from households with high living standards and high financial resources. Strikingly, our findings indicate that the relevant changes in negative subjective well-being are concentrated among women with childcare duties and informal caregiving respon-sibilities.
Link to study: https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcaf022
Attitudes towards conventional and non-conventional medical approaches and their relation to COVID-19 vaccination: Insights from Germany
Vaccine
(together with: Miriam Trübner, Judith Lehmann, Benno Brinkhaus, Christian Keßler, Rasmus Hoffmann)
We use data from a German online cross-sectional study comprising 4065 respondents conducted between September and October in 2022. Our multivariate results reveal that individuals with a positive disposition towards Traditional European Medicine and alternative medicine were, comparatively, more likely to reject COVID-19 vaccination. Positive attitudes towards alternative medicine correlate with increased levels of feeling socially pressured into accepting the vaccination. Positive attitudes towards alternative and Traditional European Medicine negatively correlate with approval of vaccination mandates, while positive attitudes towards conventional medicine increase approval. Our findings suggest that different medical attitudes are simultaneously associated with vaccination uptake and mandate approval.
Link to study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.127403
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