PhD position: "The rise in singlehood and the social embeddedness of singles" at NIDI-KNAW

PhD project on singlehood and the social embeddedness of singles at NIDI-KNAW

The rise in singlehood is one of the major demographic trends of the last few decades. The question is how to maintain social cohesion in this context of increasing individualization. This PhD project examines whether and under which circumstances singlehood has integrative or isolating effects for singles aged 20 to 50. It explores what it means to be single, as well as singles’ social relations and well-being. It does so by collecting and examining new qualitative and quantitative data among singles and by using large-scale register data on networks. The focus of the project is on diversity within the singles’ population.

Key research questions include:

• What does it mean to be single?
• How do the social networks of singles differ from those of partnered individuals? Does this change over the life-course?
• Under which individual and contextual conditions does singlehood foster integrative versus isolating patterns of social relations and solidarity behavior?
• To what extent do perceived singlehood norms within family, workplace, and neighborhood contexts moderate the relationship between singlehood and well-being, and are these effects gendered?

This PhD project is part of the SOCION consortium. SOCION addresses a pressing challenge of our time: fragmentation in societies. Social cohesion is society’s fabric and is key to sustainable societies and citizens’ well-being. However, it is increasingly undermined by erosion and polarization between communities, factions, and groups. In this project, psychologists, social historians, demographers, philosophers, and sociologists collaborate with civic organizations to generate and integrate insights into how connections between individuals, groups, and institutions contribute to new pathways to and forms of social cohesion.

This PhD-project will be supervised by Lonneke van den Berg (daily supervisor), Matthijs Kalmijn (promotor), and Charlotte Knowles (RUG-philosophy).

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.
• Participate in the national SOCION project.
• Contribute to project dissemination activities and communications with the cultural music sector.
• Collect new survey data on norms about singlehood, and the well-being and experiences of singles.

What you will be contributing

• (Research) MA/MSc degree in demography, sociology, social psychology, or epidemiology.
• Interest in, and ideally some familiarity with philosophy.
• Interest in the topic of social cohesion and in collaborating in a broad research consortium with academic and non-academic stakeholders.
• Interest in interdisciplinary research, including analytical and theoretical dimensions.
• Professional competence in English.
• Intellectual curiosity, engagement with social questions, creativity, and analytical rigor.
• A background in quantitative data analyses and skills in advanced statistical methods and programming (e.g., Stata or R).
• Interest in doing mixed methods research/qualitative research.
• Team players who want to play an active role in an inter- and transdisciplinary research community and training programme.

What do 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.

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. The working environment is highly international and NIDI provides ample opportunities for training and development.