Alice Kügler, Assistant Professor in CEU’s Department of Economics and Business, will lead the research project, “Parental Leave and Career Trajectories of Men and Women in Austria”, which focuses on the impacts of career interruptions due to parental leave after childbirth. The project was granted 434,810 euro of funding by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF). “Career interruptions due to parental leave after childbirth are quantitatively the most important drivers of gender pay gaps,” Kügler said. “In this project we use newly available data to investigate how financial and career considerations, as well as social norms, influence parental leave taking, and in particular the leave taking of fathers."
Kügler will additionally co-lead the project, “Multidimensional Social Mobility and Pathways to Upward Mobility in Austria”, with researchers from WU Vienna. This project received 594,435 euro in WWTF funding. Research on intergenerational social mobility examines how and the extent to which parental background shapes opportunities and attainments along the lifecycle. “In Austria, comprehensive evidence on intergenerational social mobility and its underlying drivers does not exist,” said Kügler. “The project proposes to fill this gap using newly available register data.”
For the project on parental leave taking, a position is currently open for a Postdoctoral Researcher, and the project team working on intergenerational mobility is looking to hire a Postdoctoral Researcher and a PhD student.