About

Welcome to my website. 

I am the head of the research group "Education and Human Potential" at the Federal Institute for Population Research (BIB). I am also a research fellow at IZA Bonn, a fellow of the College for Interdisciplinary Educational Research (CIDER) and a member of the Education Economics Committee of the German Economic Association (Bildungsökonomischer Ausschuss des Vereins für Socialpolitik). I earned my PhD from Freie Universität Berlin in cooperation with DIW's Graduate Center.

My primary research interests lie in the economics of human capital formation and the impact of public policies in this area, especially in relation to education, family and health. I am also interested in research on factors affecting the balance between work and family life, and its consequences on parents and children. 

My research in the field of public policy encompasses several areas. These include parental leave and work-family reconciliation, the costs of day care, and educational inequality in health. Furthermore, I am investigating the societal consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on education and families.

LATEST NEWS. 

18 July 2024: New Policy Report on the impact of parental leave absences on firms. "Längere Elternzeiten haben langfristig keine negativen Auswirkungen auf die Betriebe" im IAB Forum.

6 June 2024: New Policy Report on the Link between Advanced Maternal Age at Birth and Children's Development. "Begünstigt eine spätere Mutterschaft die kindliche Entwicklung? Der familiale Hintergrund ist entscheidend" in Bevölkerungsforschung Aktuell 2/2024

10 Apr 2024: New Handbook Chapter on "Well-Being throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany: Gendered Effects of Daycare and School Closures" forthcoming in "Handbook of Inequality and COVID-19 (edited by Kenneth Couch). 

1 March 2024: Updated Working Paper on "Parental Leave, Worker Substitutability, and Firms' Employment". Covered in IZA Newsroom.

22 Nov 2023: New study on "Early Inequalities" released in Berlin. Covered in, e.g., ZDF, Spiegel Online, Welt, Zeit, Deutschlandfunk