About AMCIS

Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS)

AMCIS studies inequalities in (post-) industrialized societies and particularly focuses on the impact of stratifying variables (social origin, education, gender and ethnicity) on three outcome pillars: socioeconomic attainment (concerning outcomes in the domains of education, work, and income), political behaviour and opinions, and living arrangements. The central focus is how institutions and structures mediate the impact of social origin, education, gender and ethnicity on outcomes in each of these three ‘pillars’.

Organisational structure and collaborations

The Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS) was founded in 2010. The AMCIS is funded by a Research Focal Area ("Onderzoeksspeerpunt") of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Amsterdam. The Centre aims to bring together researchers from Sociology, Political Science, Demography, Educational Science and Economics, to study the impact of institutions on inequalities in the fields of labour, education and politics. AMCIS helps to bring together existing research groups strong on quantitative empirical-theoretical research on inequalities. Each group brings in its own primary expertise, which leads to an expansion of research activities, greater coherence and visibility of the various groups working on similar domains. The AMCIS puts Amsterdam on the academic map as a place where Inequality is studied, in the same way as has been achieved in the United States at Stanford, Columbia, Yale and Cornell universities.

AMCIS, located at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Amsterdam, is collaborating with other UvA faculties and with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. AMCIS forms the home community of inequality researchers of these various institutes, with a PhD community, research seminars, and collaborative research projects. A first list of planned collaborative research themes is given below. The expertises of the different groups can be described as follows. Links between groups are displayed in the graph below.

The AISSR research programme “Institutions, Inequalities and Internationalization” (AISSR-i3) directed by Herman van de Werfhorst brings in detailed knowledge on the effects of national institutions and structures on inequalities of various kinds, and expertise on education, gender and labour markets.
The AISSR research programme of Clara Mulder (GEO) brings in expertise on spatial dimensions of inequality, including housing and living arrangements.
The AISSR research programme “Challenges to democratic representation” (POL) headed by Wouter van der Brug contributes expertise on political inequalities (particularly in the extent to which citizens’ opinions are represented political actors, such as parties or interest groups).
The Educational Science group (EDUC) headed by Sjoerd Karsten brings in expertise on the role of educational processes in generating inequalities between social classes and ethnic groups, and is a leading Dutch partner in the collection and analysis of Dutch large-scale educational cohort panel data.
AIASis a well-known multi-disciplinary institute studying economic inequality, and brings in expertise on inequalities in labour markets. It is also strongly institutional in focus.
The VU research programme on “Social Inequality and the Life Course” (VU-SILC) brings in expertise on social stratification, demographic transitions, life course research, and cross-national datasets and analysis.

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