Inequality is an increasing concern globally. Different types of inequality such as economic, social, political, or health are interrelated and often reinforce each other. However, we know little about the causes of and how to diminish inequality broadly speaking. In a new cross-disciplinary research center called “Platform for Inequality Research at Aarhus University” (PIREAU), researchers from departments across Aarhus BSS and Health will investigate inequality; in particular, the interplay between different types of inequalities. The research center consists of a core group of senior researchers supplemented by other tenured researchers as well as Ph.D.-students and postdocs.

Research projects at the center include an investigation on the causes of inequality in children’s health and economics conducted by researchers from Department of Psychology and Department of Economics. A major predictor of life course inequality in health and economics is divorce. The likelihood of divorce is disproportionately higher for couples with low socioeconomic status, and divorce is related to children’s health and economic outcomes such as lower educational attainment and higher rates of hospitalization. However, less is known about whether the negative effects on health and economics is caused by the divorce itself (change in family structure) or changes in the quality of family relationship prior to marital dissolution (change in family process). This research project, for instance, aims to link data from several couple-focused randomized controlled trials with register-based data to test causal effects of relationship quality on health and economic outcomes as well as examining potential heterogenous effects (e.g., across social status/class) of social policies targeting the family.  

From the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Associate Professor Tea Trillingsgaard and Postdoc Frederik Godt Hansen are affiliated with PIREAU.