Gøsta Esping-Andersen

Professor Gosta Esping-Anderson is the Professor of Sociology at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His early work centered on the political sociology of social democratic parties and electorates. His collaboration on an international welfare state evolution project led to a focus on comparative social policies, welfare states, and political economy. Social inequality and life course constitutes a third dominant theme producing two co-authored books and a number of journal articles. Over the last 5-7 years, his research has shifted to changing family dynamics. He has financed by a 2 million dollar research grant, the project adopts multiple equilibrium models to the transformation of contemporary partnering, fertility, and divorce using event history estimation on long panel data. His book, titled "Quo vadis familia" synthesizes the main results, and is to be published soon. He is a member of the British Academy, Doctor Honoris Causa at Roskilde University. He is member of the scientific board of numerous scientific institutions including the Danish National Institute for Social Research, the CEACS of the Juan March Institute, IMDEA, and the Danish Strategic Research Council. He has been actively engaged in applied policy relevant work for international organizations, including the United Nations, the OECD, ISSA, and the European Union. He participated in the preparation for the EU's Lisbon Summit in 2000 and co-authored a report on welfare state reform for the Belgian presidency of the EU in 2002. He has also been member of EU President Baroso's social policy advisory group.