PhD: "Change and Inequality in Cultural Participation: Demographic and Sociological Perspectives''

PhD position at NIDI / KNAW: “Change and Inequality in Cultural Participation: Demographic and Sociological Perspectives”

Cultural participation is changing—and understanding why is crucial for both sociology and the cultural sector. This PhD project investigates the long-term ageing of cultural audiences, a phenomenon widely observed in the audience for classical music but increasingly relevant for theatres, literature, and even selected rock music genres.

The central aim of the project is to explain why cultural audiences are ageing by developing and applying an age–period–cohort perspective. As a PhD candidate, you will work with rich survey data collected over several decades, contribute to the collection of new survey data on cultural participation, and analyze longitudinal data on cultural participation across the life course. This offers a unique opportunity to combine theoretical sociology, demographic perspectives, and advanced quantitative methods.

Key research questions include:

• How can age, period, and cohort effects be disentangled to understand—and predict—the future of cultural audiences?
• How do cohort differences relate to socialization in the parental home, educational inequality, and cultural capital?
• What role do life course transitions (e.g. family formation, employment, retirement) and changing time constraints play in cultural participation?
• How do inequality and status-seeking shape patterns of cultural engagement across the life course?

Beyond its academic contribution, the project has a societal and policy relevance. The findings will be actively communicated to the cultural sector through presentations, reports, and practitioner-oriented publications, giving you experience in translating academic research into real-world insights.

The project is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and will be carried out at an academic research institute with a strong focus on high-quality, publishable research.

What you will be doing

In this four-year project, you will:

• Carry out cutting-edge academic research within an international team of engaged researchers.
• Publish national and international journal articles, resulting in a PhD thesis.
• Participate in, and present at (inter-)national scientific meetings.
• Contribute to project dissemination activities and communications with the cultural sector.
• Collect new survey data on the (non)participation in various forms of cultural consumption.

What you will be contributing

• A research master’s degree in the social sciences. Examples of relevant disciplines are sociology, population studies, leisure studies, gerontology, and social psychology.
• A background in quantitative data analyses and skills in advanced statistical methods and programming (e.g., Stata or R).
• Intellectual curiosity, engagement with social questions, creativity, and analytical rigor.
• The capacity to contribute thoughtfully to academic scholarship and societal debates.
• Good writing and presentation skills.

What we offer

We offer a 1-year contract which will be extended by 3 additional years after a positive evaluation. The PhD position offers close supervision, excellent training opportunities, and a solid foundation for an academic or research-oriented career. Preferred starting date between May 1st and September 1st.

Your workplace

The work climate is based on mutual respect, openness, and collaboration. The institute consists of about 80 employees of different levels of seniority.

NIDI comprises five thematic groups: (1) Families & gender, (2) Migrants & migration, (3) Demographic change and the labour market, (4) Health, ageing and mortality, (5) Data infrastructure and open science. Each group has approximately 10-15 members.

About NIDI

The Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) is a leading European demographic research institute. NIDI is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and affiliated with the University of Groningen. It is located in the center of The Hague providing a unique and stimulating research environment in the broad field of population studies.

Applying for a Certificate of Good Conduct can be part of the employment procedure.