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Rense Nieuwenhuis

H-index: 21
Political science 46%
Sociology 12%
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
"Fragmentation of social policies remain a key explanation of gender inequality".

Mara Yerkes in her keynote at "Breaking silos, building futures.
Policy innovations for integrated family and child support"

@odiseehogeschool.bsky.social @cofaceeu.bsky.social
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
"To a child seeking help, labels on the doors mean nothing. To them, it matters how the health/social workers are as a person."

Maria Kaisa Aula (Welfare area of Central Finland) on the importance of trust in welfare provision.

@cofaceeu.bsky.social @odiseehogeschool.bsky.social
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
In the conclusion, we critically reflect on our own role in taking on this commissioned work, the importance that policy makers involve academics already at the design stage of the tender/commissioned work, and the importance of methodological pluralism.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
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rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Blindspot 5: The various forms of publication bias.

Countries known for extensive provision of ECEC were overrepresented. This means that the evidence base for the revision of the Barcelona targets might be the weakest for those countries that might be furthest away from achieving them.
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Blindspot 4: The focus on individual-level rather than macro-level outcomes.

Reform studies focus on individual-level outcomes, which facilitates causal inference but overlooks higher-order outcomes and thus the relationship between ECEC and important societal developments.
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Blindspot 3: The focus on short-term outcomes.

Many studies in the ECEC reform database examined the immediate and short-term effects of policy changes. Only a few reform studies included in the database have examined how long it takes for implemented policy reforms to have an effect.
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Blindspot 2: The limited focus on reducing inequality in the use and benefits of ECEC.

Yet, reform studies are silent on the degree of cross-country inequality in ECEC use. Consequently, which aspects of ECEC policy lead to an increase or decrease in inequality in ECEC use remains unknown.
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Blindspot 1: The context-specific nature of reform studies.

Focusing on excluding ‘confounding’, reform studies generally focus on a single country, and are less able to explain how to increase effectiveness depends on its interplay with other institutional and structural conditions.
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Our commissioned focus was very much on reform studies. The value of such studies to isolate the causal effect is indisputable, but a tradeoff is that these reforms studies tend to be empirically narrow.

We kept wondering: “What are we missing?”.

So, we reflected on five blindspots:
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
It started out as a report commissioned report by DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (@ec.europa.eu). We created a database of ECEC reform studies, in preparation of the revised Barcelona Targets (on childcare).
mollborn.bsky.social
Please apply! PhD position @sofi.su.se. Stockholm University ERC-funded project, Making Time: Organized Labour and the Politics of Care Leave. MA degree (or near completion) and quant training required. 1 Oct deadline, start Jan 2026. See: su.varbi.com/what:job/job....
Doktorand i sociologi
Sociologiska institutionen är en av Stockholms universitets största samhällsvetenskapliga institutioner och rankas kontinuerligt bland de 50 bästa sociologiska institutionerna i världen. Mer info
su.varbi.com
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
@abrarbawati.bsky.social presenting @reusilience.bsky.social results from ongoing work titled “From Origin to Destination: How Migration Shapes the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty in Europe”.

#espanet
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Mary Daly from @dspi-oxford.bsky.social presenting key insights from the @reusilience.bsky.social book “Families, Welfare States and Resilience” at #ESPAnet

www.elgaronline.com/edcollbook-o...
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
While Sweden’s institutionalised power relations remained stable, Finland and the Netherlands experienced temporary shifts, with governments bypassing the social partners on health-related issues. The health-care sector and precarious workers emerged as especially vulnerable.
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Drawing on 30 interviews with representatives of social partner organisations and government agencies, as well as labour market experts, we demonstrate strong institutional stability and path dependence in industrial relations during the crisis.
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Institutionalised power or crisis corporatism? Comparing Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic

New paper by @jstrigen.bsky.social, @rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social, @minnavangerven.bsky.social Zamzam Elmi and Aino Salmi.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Toon Van Havere gave such a great presentation that I forgot to take a picture. In the @reusilience.bsky.social project, he bravely ventures into policy interplays and context specificity of childcare out-of-pocket costs and child-contingent benefits: osf.io/preprints/so...
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
Getting an #ESPAnet conference off the ground is no small feat - thanks to the organizing team!

Reposted by: Rense Nieuwenhuis

bartovalzbeta.bsky.social
Our new paper about the Families in Households Typology (FHT) is finally out!

Codes (in Stata) are currently available for EU-SILC, ESS, EQLS and HBS and can be downloaded here: zenodo.org/records/1585...
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
The syntax is publicly available, and applicable to several widely used social surveys.
rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social
We classify households based on the family relationships among household members. This is more precise than standard family type variables, and substantially reduces the share of households classified as “Other”.

Reposted by: Rense Nieuwenhuis

merveuzunalioglu.bsky.social
This was an absolute pleasure! Grateful for the attentive audience and their feedback. Lots to do but highly motivated ✨ many thanks to my host @janhelmdag.bsky.social and my wonderful colleagues and friends @rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social @thaning.bsky.social @cassandraengeman.bsky.social until next time
merveuzunalioglu.bsky.social
Working with a Swedish forest view today! So happy to be at @sofi.su.se and excited to be presenting our new @reusilience.bsky.social work on the childcare gap tomorrow at the Social Welfare & Stratification Seminar. Send good wishes!

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