Research

Major scientific interests: Social Stratification and Mobility, Sociology of the Life Course, Social Demography, Occupational Structures and Labor Market Processes, Sociology of Aging Populations, Comparative Welfare States, Methods of Survey Research

Karl Ulrich Mayer’s major research interests focus on how socio-economic and gender inequalities in education, training, and careers are generated across the life course and how generations differ in these mechanisms and outcomes. He is the Principal Investigator of the German Life History Study which since 1979 has collected more than 12,000 life histories of representative samples of East and West Germans born between 1919 and 1971.

Career

• since 2010 Professor Emeritus
• since 2008 Stanley B. Resor Professor of Sociology, Yale University, USA
• 2005-2010 Chair of the Department of Sociology, Yale University, USA
• 2003-2010 Founding Director, Center for Research on Social Inequalities and the Life Course (CIQLE), Yale University, USA
• 2003-2010 Professor of Sociology, Yale University, USA
• since 1984 Honorary Professor, Free University Berlin, Germany
• 1983-2005 Director, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
• 1982-2009 Visiting Professorships in Zurich, Vienna, Harvard, Florence, Yale, Barcelona, Constance, Mannheim and Rostock
• 1980-1983 Professor of Sociology (C-2 on leave), University of Mannheim, Germany
• 1979-1983 Director, National Survey Research Center (ZUMA), Mannheim, Germany
• 1977 Habilitation, Sociology, University of Mannheim, Germany
• 1973 Ph.D. (Dr. rer.soc.), University of Constance, Germany
• 1972-1979 Assistant Professor, University of Mannheim, Germany
• 1968-1972 Assistant Professor, University of Frankfurt / Main, Germany
• 1965-1967 Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, USA, (B.A. major in Sociology) and Fordham University, New York, USA (M.A. major in Sociology)
• 1964-1965 University of Tübingen, Germany, German Language and Literature, Philosophy, Sociology

Functions

• 2012 Member of the University Council, University of Frankfurt / Main, Germany
• 2011 Member of the Governing Board, Science Europe
• 2010-2014 President of the Leibniz Association
• 1998-2002 Founding Senator of the Section Economics and Empirical Social Sciences of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

Honours and Memberships

• 2012 Research Fellow, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
• 2008-2010 Stanley B. Resor Professor of Sociology, Yale University, USA
• since 2004 Member, Sociological Research Association
• since 2004 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• since 2003 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• since 2000 Founding Member, European Academy of Sociology
• since 2000 Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy
• since 1998 Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
• since 1995 Member, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and Humanities
• since 1989 Member, Academia Europaea