Social Dynamics in Swiss Society: Empirical Studies Based on the Swiss

Using longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel to zoom in on continuity and change in the life course, this open access book describes how the lives of the Swiss population have changed in terms of health, family circumstances, work, political participation, and migration over the last sixteen years. What are the different trajectories in terms of mobility, health, wealth, and family constellations? What are the drivers behind all these changes over time and in the life course? And what are the implications for inequality in society and for social policy?


The Swiss Household Panel is a unique ongoing longitudinal survey that has followed a large sample of Swiss households since 1999. The data provide the rare opportunity to go beyond a snapshot of contemporary Swiss society and give insight into the processes in people's lives and in society that lie behind recent developments.

Dr Robin Tillmann is the head of the Swiss Household Panel at the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences FORS. He has more than 20 years of experience in empirical social research. His research interests include social stratification, social inequality and social change, precariousness and poverty, and quality of life. He is co-editor of the special issue "Persistent Social Inequalities" of the Swiss Journal of Sociology (2012). He contributed to the Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research (Springer, 2014) and to the book Poor Europe. The problem of poverty in chosen European countries (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego, 2015).

Dr Marieke Voorpostel is a senior researcher for the Swiss Household Panel at the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences FORS. She received her PhD in sociology from Utrecht University in 2007. Her research focuses primarily on kinship, family diversity, the interplay between the family and the community, and survey methodology. She has published her research in various European and American scientific journals. She has also contributed to handbooks on aging and the family.