Rona Geffen is a post-doctoral researcher at SCRIPTS. Throughout her research, she explores why people’s career and family lives are persistently unequal, with a special focus on the role of social origin and the opportunity structure in shaping this inequality. She wrote her dissertation at the Chair for Social Stratification and Social Policy at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Before coming to Germany, she completed her master’s degree in sociology and worked as a teaching and research assistant at the University of Haifa, Israel. As part of her earlier work, she studied the social integration of immigrants.

Resarch Interests

• Social Inequality
• Career and the Family
• Inter- and Intra-generational Mobility
• Life Course
• Social Policy
• Quantitative Research Methods
• Social Integration of Immigrant

Current Research Projects at SCRIPTS

The growing employment flexibility in contemporary societies has led to two contradictory trends. On one hand, flexible employment benefits employers by saving costs and allowing quick adaptation to changes in the global environment. However, flexible work has created a new opportunity structure that challenges peoples’ future orientation and their ability to make long-term plans and progress in their lives. In light of these trends, my project addresses the question of why people’s careers and family lives are so unequal and the factors that affect this persistent inequality. I am especially interested in the role of social origin and the opportunity structure in shaping this inequality. By doing so, the project examines the discrepancy between the liberal ideals of individual freedom, meritocracy and social justice, and their actual existence in liberal societies.

• Kemp, A., Raijman, R. and Geffen, R. 2020, 'Who drives migration discourse and in what direction? Claims-making and political mobilization analyses of labor migration in Israel.' Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2020.1759403.
• Raijman, R. & Geffen, R. 2018, 'Sense of Belonging and Life Satisfaction among Post‐1990 Immigrants in Israel'; International Migration, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 142-157.  
• Raijman, R., Semyonov M. and Geffen, R. 2015, 'Language Proficiency among Post-1990 Immigrants in Israel', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 41, no. 8, pp. 1347-1371.

Media

• Geffen, R., 2021, Interview, Video-Series “Faces of SCRIPTS”, Cluster of Excellence SCRIPTS, 2021. Available from: https://youtu.be/zucHbGCVApo.

SCRIPTS Working Paper Series

• Geffen, Rona 2022: The Timing of Lives: The Role of Standard Employment in Income Mobility and Co-residential Unions in Early Adulthood, SCRIPTS Working Paper No. 15, Berlin: Cluster of Excellence 2055 “Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)”.