Dr Marii Paskov

I am an interdisciplinary inequality and social policy scholar. Linking perspectives from sociology, social policy, economics, and applying advanced statistical methods, I study how and why inequalities in living standards, wellbeing, and opportunities differ across countries and over time, but also across generations and the life-course of an individual. My research is geared towards generating fairer and more productive societies, workplaces, and communities through the reduction of inequalities and increasing wellbeing and opportunities for diverse groups.

My work is published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Social Forces, Social Science & Medicine, European Sociological Review, Journal of European Social Policy, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, and Acta Sociologica. I act as an Associate Editor of European Societies, the flagship journal of the European Sociological Association. I have attained a total of £350k in external grants from funders like the British Academy, Estonian Research and Development Council, and the John Fell Fund.

Currently, I am a Lecturer in Social Policy at the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol and an Associate Fellow at Nuffield College and the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the University of Oxford. I am also affiliated to the School of Governance, Law and Society at Tallinn University. Previously, I was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford, affiliated to the Department of Social Policy and Intervention and the Institute of New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School. I have also worked as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and as a Research Officer as part of the Employment, Equity, and Growth Programme at the University of Oxford. I have held visiting positions at the Centre on Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University, the Department of Sociology at the University of Missouri, the Amsterdam Institute of Advanced Labour Studies, and the State Institute of Family Research at the University of Bamberg.

I have teaching experience in Social Policy and Sociology departments in the UK and the Netherlands, and I have been supervising BSc, MSc and DPhil students at the University of Oxford and the University of Bristol. My teaching covers areas like poverty, inequality, social policy, and research methods.

My current research is particularly focused on economic stress - an experience of pressure or tension resulting from challenging material circumstances. I argue that economic stress reflects a paradox in modern rich societies: despite enormous aggregate income and wealth, managing the economic side of life is still a source of stress, worry, and anxiety for many. While governments of rich countries produce reliable statistics on the evolution and distribution of incomes, there is no clear understanding of how people at different parts of the income distribution experience their economic life and the levels of economic stress they endure. In my research, I want to establish how much economic stress is experienced by individuals and families at different parts of the income distribution, which sub-segments of the society are most affected and why, how public, private, and third sector support systems together with digital solutions can help navigate economic stress, and what the consequences of economic stress are for health and productivity.