PhD Housing Governance for Healthy Aging

Job description

Are you interested in research to understand housing inequality, and motivated to find governance approaches which can support older adult health and wellbeing?

We are looking for a PhD candidate to take part in the research project ‘Housing Governance for Healthy Aging,’ led by Principal Investigators Dr Sarah Mawhorter and Dr Sara Özoğul together with Prof. Louise Meijering.

Safe and suitable housing is necessary to support healthy aging, yet not all older adults can afford housing that meets their needs. While some older adults are well-off, with a stable home and accumulated financial resources (including housing wealth), others struggle to get by, living in more precarious situations. Systems to ensure older adults can access appropriate housing vary widely by country, and many countries rely increasingly on market mechanisms rather than a social safety net for later life housing provision. As many developed countries face aging populations, housing affordability crises, and fiscal challenges simultaneously, planners and policymakers need empirical evidence about the regulations, funding, and programs they can put in place to support older adult health and wellbeing.

This project investigates the role of housing governance–at the local and national levels–in supporting healthy aging, whether aging in place or transitioning to new living situations such as retirement communities or a form of assisted living. In a comparative framework, the project involves using mixed methods to analyse housing governance regimes and outcomes for older adult housing and health across countries within Europe, and states within the U.S., then to assess how these play out at the local level. The project involves three main objectives:

• Develop a typology of housing governance regimes related to older adult housing, using qualitative methods to observe housing regulations and programs across European countries and U.S. states.
• Assess the outcomes for older adult housing, health, and wellbeing, using quantitative methods to analyse secondary survey data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in the US.
• Examine how housing governance for older adults plays out at the local level.

Your primary responsibility will be carrying out this research as part of the research team. Key responsibilities also include:

• Regularly present research results at workshops and conferences, and publish them in international journals.
• Follow relevant disciplinary and/or research methods courses as part of the Graduate School training program, based on an individual training and supervision plan.
• Participate in the scientific and collaborative research environment in the research group and the wider Faculty of Spatial Sciences.
• Contribute to the teaching programs of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences (approximately 15% of the appointment).
• Complete academic work leading to a PhD dissertation to be defended at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen, with the aim of obtaining a PhD.

Organisation

The University of Groningen has an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative centre of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Within the university, the Faculty of Spatial Sciences (FSS) focuses on high quality teaching and research in the fields of spatial planning, economic and cultural geography and demography. FSS is also well-embedded in a wider range of disciplines, such as social, political and technology sciences. Our vision is to spatially transform society to support wellbeing and innovation. Our mission as a faculty is to undertake and disseminate, via research and teaching, rigorous and distinctive research which helps to realize this vision. FSS employs around 100 academic staff members, over 100 PhD candidates, and serves about 1100 students. We are a cohesive Faculty committed to internationally-oriented, interdisciplinary research of high societal relevance with our new research programme Transformations, Communities, and Environments (TRACE), which encompasses socio-spatial transformations; wellbeing, equity, and resilience for people and places; and socio-spatial differences and sustainable development.

Qualifications

We are looking for a candidate with:

• A Master, Research Master, or equivalent degree in demography, planning, economic or human geography, population studies, sociology, public health, or another relevant social science.
• An excellent academic record, with professional experience as an advantage.
• Demonstrated quantitative research skills including experience with data management and multivariate analysis working with programs such as Stata, R, or Python.
• Experience with qualitative research methods or willingness to learn to contribute to the housing governance typology.
• Good writing skills and fluency in written and spoken English, as well as experience in academic writing in English.
• Motivation for academic work, as well as planning, organization, and communication skills, and a proactive and independent work attitude.
• C

uriosity and enthusiasm for scientific research and strong conceptual thinking, with a keen interest in the topics and methods involved in the Housing Governance for Healthy Aging project, preferably demonstrated by previous work on similar topics.

If you meet these criteria, we invite you to apply for this vacancy.

Organisation

Conditions of employment

The successful candidate will be offered, following the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

• A PhD training programme is part of the agreement and the successful candidate will be enrolled in the Graduate School of Spatial Sciences.
• A salary of € 2,901 gross per month in the first year, up to a maximum of € 3,707 gross per month in the fourth and final year for a full-time working week.
• A holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income and an 8.3% year-end bonus.
• This full-time position (1.0 FTE) as PhD researcher is a temporary appointment for four years. The successful candidate will first be offered a temporary position of 12 months. After a positive evaluation, the contract will be extended for the remaining part of the project. Prolongation of the contract is contingent on sufficient progress in the first year to indicate that a successful completion of the PhD thesis within the next three years is to be expected.

The successful candidate will preferably begin employment around June 1, 2025