Tel.[+39] 055 4685 273 / Int. 2273
Department of Political and Social Sciences
European University Institute
50014 San Domenico di Fiesole - Italy
My appointments can be arranged via email.
Martin Kohli was born in 1942 in Solothurn (Switzerland), and studied at the Universities of Geneva, Cologne, and Bern, where he obtained his doctorate. After a few years at the Ministry of Education of the Canton of Zurich and as Assistant Professor at the University of Constance (completed by his "habilitation") he went to the Free University of Berlin where he has been Professor of Sociology since 1977 (now emeritus).
In 1984-85, he was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in 1995-96, Fellow at the Collegium Budapest, and in 2000-01, Fellow at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (Delmenhorst/Bremen). He has also been a Visiting Professor or Researcher at Harvard University (1989), Stanford University (1999), Columbia University (2000) and the University of North Carolina (2004).
He is a member both of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and from 1997-99 served as President of the European Sociological Association (ESA).
In Berlin, he directs the Research Group on Aging and the Life Course (Forschungsgruppe Altern und Lebenslauf, FALL).
Martin Kohli was appointed to the Chair in Sociology, and joined the Department in October 2004.
German (native), English (fluent), French (fluent), Italian (fair)
Life course, generations, fertility, aging, intergenerational transfers and inheritance; European social structures, population, family, kinship and welfare states; collective identities.
Martin Kohli has contributed to establishing the life course approach in sociology and mapping its current changes (see also the Research Group on Aging and the Life Course, Berlin )
Kohli, Martin. 2009. "The world we forgot: A historical review of the life course." Pp. 64-90 in The life course reader: Individuals and societies across time, edited by Walter R. Heinz, Johannes Huinink, and Ansgar Weymann. Frankfurt/M: Campus (reprinted from 1985)
Kohli, Martin. 2007. "The institutionalization of the life course: Looking back to look ahead." Research in Human Development 4:253-271.
In a series of research projects he has focused on the changing balance of work and retirement and on its institutional underpinnings (labor markets, pension systems). He has also addressed issues of intergenerational justice and of the politics of aging.He is one of two European members of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on the Aging Society, charged with studying demographic aging and appropriate policy responses. As a counter-point, he is also participating in a similarly oriented group of the German-speaking Academies of Science on Fertility and Societal Development .
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The Political Economy of Pension Reform
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Aging and Justice
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Altersgrenzen als gesellschaftliches Regulativ
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Generationengerechtigkeit ist mehr als Rentenfinanzierung
Kohli, Martin. 2010. "Age groups and generations: Lines of conflict and potentials for integration " Pp. 169-185 in A young generation under pressure? The financial situation and the "rush hour" of the cohorts 1970-1985 in a generational comparison, edited by Joerg Chet Tremmel. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer.
In recent years, he has analyzed intergenerational transfers and inheritance in the family and its relation to the ‘generational contract’ in the welfare state. He has collaborated on a major European survey (SHARE ) as well as on a large comparative project on Kinship and Social Security (together with anthropologists and historians), and has also engaged on a project on Generational succession in family firms in Germany and Italy .
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Private and Public Transfers between Generations: Linking the Family and the State
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Intergenerational Transfers and Inheritance: A Comparative View
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Intergenerational Transfers in the Family: What Motivates Giving?
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Erbschaften und Vermögensverteilung
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Family Structure, Proximity and Contact
Albertini, Marco, Martin Kohli, and Claudia Vogel. 2007. "Intergenerational transfers of time and money in European families: Common patterns - different regimes?" Journal of European Social Policy 17:319-334.
Heady, Patrick, and Martin Kohli (Eds.). 2010. Family, kinship and state in contemporary Europe, Vol. 3: Perspectives on theory and policy. Frankfurt/M: Campus.
Kohli, Martin, Marco Albertini, and Harald Künemund. 2010. "Linkages among adult family generations: Evidence from comparative survey research." Pp. 195-220 in Family, kinship and state in contemporary Europe. Vol. 3: Perspectives on theory and policy, edited by Patrick Heady and Martin Kohli. Frankfurt/M: Campus.
Kohli, Martin, and Marco Albertini (Eds.). 2009. Minimal families: Childlessness and intergenerational transfers (Special issue of Ageing & Society, vol. 29, no. 8, November 2009, pp. 1171-1274).