Research
Research projects at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES)
- Changing Work and Retirement Inequalities in an Ageing Europe
- Integration of Migrants and Attitudes towards the Welfare State (completed)
- Women's Late Careers in Europe and the USA—Employment Chances and Transitions Between Care-Giving and Retirement (completed)
- Employment in the Early Phase of the Corona Crisis in Germany (completed)
- Comparing the Coordination of Elderly Care Services in European Welfare States: How Organizational Actors Respond to Marketization Policies (completed)
- Crisis Corporatism or Corporatismus in Crisis? Social Concertation and Social pacts in Europe (completed)
Research projects at the Collaborative Research Centre “Political Economy of Reforms” (SFB 884)
- Welfare State Reform Support from Below: Linking Individual Attitudes and Organized Interests in Europe
- Welfare State Reform Support from Below: Linking Individual Attitudes and Organized Interests in Europe
Selected Publications
- Lee, K. & Ebbinghaus, B. (2025). Converging or unequal retirement patterns? Late working lives, retirement trajectories, and pension income in Germany over three decades of cohorts. Social Forces : SF, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf211
- Möhring, K., Overweg, C. & Weiland, A. (2025). The motherhood penalty in financial resources for retirement: a life course perspective on the accumulation of public pension wealth and personal wealth in East and West Germany. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik = Journal of Economics and Statistics, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2024-0064
- Reifenscheid, M. & Möhring, K. (2025). Support for a legal right to work from home: do those who need it, support it? The COVID-19 pandemic as natural experiment. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 98(3, article e70046), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.70046
- Ehrlich, U., Kelle, N., Klaus, D. & Möhring, K. (2024). How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the wellbeing of family care-givers? A longitudinal study of older adults in Germany. Ageing and Society, 44(7), 1533–1550. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X22000873
- Möhring, K. & Teney, C. (2024). Public support for affirmative action policies favouring women and migrants in recruitment processes: An international survey experiment. Acta Sociologica : AS, 67(2), 215–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/00016993231163416
- Naumann, E., Brinkmann, M. M. & Möhring, K. (2024). The ethnic penalty in welfare deservingness: A factorial survey experiment on welfare chauvinism in pension attitudes in Germany. Journal of European Social Policy, 34(2), 190–202. https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287231222840
- Teney, C., Pietrantuono, G. & Möhring, K. (2023). Who supports whom? Citizens' support for affirmative action policies in recruitment processes towards four underrepresented groups. Journal of European Public Policy, 30(12), 2832–2853. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2022.2131885
- Bühler, B., Möhring, K. & Weiland, A. (2022). Assessing dissimilarity of employment history information from survey and administrative data using sequence analysis techniques. Quality & Quantity, 56(6), 4747–4774. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-022-01333-9
- Cheng, C., Desvars-Larrive, A., Ebbinghaus, B., Hale, T., Howes, A., Lehner, L., Messerschmidt, L., Nika, A., Penson, S., Petherick, A., Xu, H., Zapf, A. J., Zhang, Y. & Zweig, S. A. (2022). Capturing the COVID-19 crisis through public health and social measures data science. Scientific Data, 9(Article 520), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01616-8
- Cornesse, C., Krieger, U., Sohnius, M.-L., Fikel, M., Friedel, S., Rettig, T., Wenz, A., Juhl, S., Lehrer, R., Möhring, K., Naumann, E., Reifenscheid, M. & Blom, A. G. (2022). From German Internet Panel to Mannheim Corona Study: Adaptable probability-based online panel infrastructures during the pandemic. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, Statistics in Society, 185(3), 773–797. https://doi.org/10.1111/rssa.12749
- Ebbinghaus, B. (2022). Rentensysteme im Umbau: Herausforderungen und Reformwege der Alterssicherung in Europa. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte : APuZ, 72(20), 35–40.
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Lehner, L. (2022). Cui bono – business or labour? Job retention policies during the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe. Transfer : European Review of Labour and Research, 28(1), 47–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/10242589221079151
- Ebbinghaus, B., Lehner, L. & Naumann, E. (2022). Welfare state support during the COVID-19 pandemic: Change and continuity in public attitudes towards social policies in Germany. European Policy Analysis : EPA, 8(3), 297–311. https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1152
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Weishaupt, J. T. (2022). Readjusting unemployment protection in Europe: How crises reshape varieties of labour market regimes. Transfer : European Review of Labour and Research, 28(2), 181–194. https://doi.org/10.1177/10242589221086172
- Möhring, K. & Weiland, A. (2022). Couples’ life courses and women’s income in later life: A multichannel sequence analysis of linked lives in Germany. European Sociological Review, 38(3), 371–388. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcab048
- Weiland, A. (2022). Married mothers' bargaining power and their accrual of pension entitlements: evidence from East and West Germany. Work, Aging and Retirement, 8(3), 241–263. https://doi.org/10.1093/workar/waab009
- Blom, A. G. & Möhring, K. (2021). Soziale Ungleichheit in der Beschäftigungssituation während der frühen Phase der Coronakrise. Datenreport, 17, 476–483.
- Blom, A. G., Wenz, A., Cornesse, C., Rettig, T., Fikel, M., Friedel, S., Möhring, K., Naumann, E., Reifenscheid, M. & Krieger, U. (2021). Barriers to the large-scale adoption of the COVID-19 contact-tracing app in Germany: Survey study. Journal of Medical Internet Research : JMIR, 23(3), e23362. https://doi.org/10.2196/23362
- Ebbinghaus, B. (2021). Inequalities and poverty risks in old age across Europe: The double-edged income effect of pension systems. Social Policy & Administration : SP&A, 55(3), 440–455. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12683
- Kuitto, K., Kuivalainen, S. & Möhring, K. (2021). Inequalities in pensions and retirement from a life course perspective: An introduction. Social Policy & Administration : SP&A, 55(3), 403–408. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12663
- Mata, J., Wenz, A., Rettig, T., Reifenscheid, M., Möhring, K., Krieger, U., Friedel, S., Fikel, M., Cornesse, C., Blom, A. G. & Naumann, E. (2021). Health behaviors and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal population-based survey in Germany. Social Science & Medicine, 287(Article 114333). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114333
- Möhring, K. (2021). The consequences of non‐standard working and marital biographies for old age income in Europe: Contrasting the individual and the household perspective. Social Policy & Administration : SP&A, 55(3), 456–484. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12720
- Möhring, K., Naumann, E., Reifenscheid, M., Wenz, A., Rettig, T., Krieger, U., Friedel, S., Fikel, M., Cornesse, C. & Blom, A. G. (2021). The COVID-19 pandemic and subjective well-being: longitudinal evidence on satisfaction with work and family. European Societies, 23(Suppl. 1), S601–S617. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2020.1833066
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Nelson, M. (eds.) (2025). Handbook on welfare state reform . Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108808
- Bahle, T., Ariaans, M., Koch, K. & Wendt, C. (2023). Healthcare and elderly care in Europe : institutions, challenges, and solutions for better coordination . Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781802204070
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Weishaupt, J. T. (eds.) (2022). The role of social partners in managing Europe's great recession : crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis? London ; New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003186144
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Nelson, M. (2025). Welfare state reform in the age of polycrisis: an introduction. In B. Ebbinghaus & M. Nelson (eds.), Handbook on welfare state reform (S. 1–9). Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108808.00008
- Bender, B. & Ebbinghaus, B. (2024). How organized interests shape labour relations and social policies. In B. Greve, A. Moreira & M. van Gerven (eds.), Handbook on the Political Economy of Social Policy (S. 165–177). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035306497.00021
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Wiß, T. (2024). The political economy of pension policy. In B. Greve, A. Moreira & M. van Gerven (eds.), Handbook on the political economy of social policy (S. 190–202). Cheltenham: Edgar Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035306497.00023
- Ebbinghaus, B. (2023). Die Entzweiung der Siamesischen Zwillinge: Politische Entfremdung und Mitgliederschwund deutscher Gewerkschaften. In T. Faas, S. Huber, M. Krewel & S. Roßteutscher (eds.), Informationsflüsse, Wahlen und Demokratie: Festschrift für Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck (S. 355–378). Baden-Baden: Nomos. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748915553-355
- Ebbinghaus, B. (2023). Pension governance in a globalising world. In C. Karner & D. Hofäcker (eds.), Research handbook on the sociology of globalization (S. 308–318). Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839101571.00039
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Lee, K. (2023). From early retirement to later exit from work: Shifting towards active ageing. In D. Clegg & N. Durazzi (eds.), Handbook of labour market policy in advanced democracies (S. 295–308). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800880887.00030
- Bahle, T. (2022). Mindestsicherung im europäischen Vergleich. In F. Blank, C. Schäfer & D. Spannagel (eds.), Grundsicherung weiterdenken (S. 245–264). Bielefeld: Transcript. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839455944-013
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Weishaupt, J. T. (2022). Introduction : Studying social concertation in Europe. In B. Ebbinghaus & J. T. Weishaupt (eds.), The role of social partners in managing Europe's great recession : crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis? (S. 3–23). London ; New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003186144-2
- Juhl, S., Lehrer, R., Blom, A. G., Wenz, A., Rettig, T., Krieger, U., Fikel, M., Cornesse, C., Naumann, E., Möhring, K. & Reifenscheid, M. (2022). Preferences for centralized decision-making in times of crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. In J. Sauermann, M. Tepe & M. Debus (eds.), Jahrbuch für Handlungs-und Entscheidungstheorie (Bd. 12, S. 1–27). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35878-5_1
- Bahle, T. & Wendt, C. (2021). Social assistance. In D. Béland, K. J. Morgan, H. Obinger & C. Pierson (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the welfare state (2. ed., S. 624–640). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198828389.013.36
- Bender, B. & Ebbinghaus, B. (2021). When governments include social partners in crisis corportism : Comparing social concertation in Europe during the Great Recession. In B. Ebbinghaus & J. T. Weishaupt (eds.), The role of social partners in managing Europe's Great Recession : crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis? (S. 24–50). London ; New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003186144-3
- Ebbinghaus, B. (2021). Unions and employers. In D. Béland, S. Leibfried, K. J. Morgan, H. Obinger & C. Pierson (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the welfare state (2. ed., S. 278–297). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198828389.013.16
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Weishaupt, J. T. (2021). Postscript : Social partnership facing the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. In B. Ebbinghaus & J. T. Weishaupt (eds.), The role of social partners in managing Europe's Great Recession : crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis? (S. 279–293). London ; New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003186144-17
- Ebbinghaus, B. & Weishaupt, J. T. (2021). Social concertation at a crossroad : Crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis? In B. Ebbinghaus & J. T. Weishaupt (eds.), The role of social partners in managing Europe's Great Recession : crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis? (S. 262–278). London ; New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003186144-16
- Weiland, A. (2024). Couples' careers and women's financial security in later life. [Doctoral dissertation, Universität Mannheim].