Partenariats institutionnels

Women in Times of Crisis: Rethinking the Extraordinary and the Everyday

The 21st century (in the western world) has been one of crisis, beginning with 9/11 and other attacks, financial crises, wars, a global pandemic, hardening inequalities, rising populist discourses and the evergreater impact of global warming. Women have often been especially disadvantaged by these shocks. Researchers and advocates have examined the impacts of these crises on gender relations, and, specifically, on the status of women in relation to the intersectional factors that determine their life chances. The particular crises to which they refer provide a temporal/spatial frame - but the significance of 'thinking through' crisis as an episteme is rarely thematized. Turning points that alter pre-existing equilibria and which are located in specific series of events, that we denote as "crises," are often framing devices whose implications remain unexamined. To analyze the "work crises do," this project seeks to develop research collaboration, and a potential network, between three Alliance institutions (Columbia, Sciences Po and Paris 1). Several actions will be undertaken before and after an online conference held on October 18, 2024: i) a grant will be attributed to two student researchers recruited to help review the recent literature on the socio-economic impact of crises and write a short concluding summary of the conference; ii) developing the "Women and Gender in Global Affairs" webpages on the website of the lnstitute for the Study of Human Rights (at Columbia) as a means for promoting the work of the network collaboration; iii) providing translation and editorial support and aid for the preparation of policy briefs and research articles, to be published on-line after the conference; and iv) the organization of two research and communication trips between Paris and New York, in the spring of 2025, for researchers who are willing to take the project of the network forward, and to reach out to policymakers.

Financement: Alliance Columbia (Programme associant Columbia University NY, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, École Polytechnique & Sciences Po). Responsable scientifique : Angela Greulich. Calendrier du projet : 2024-2025. 

The Social and Economic Returns to Education in Francophone West-Africa

Strategies to promote sustainable development and improve standards of living in the global South—as embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals—focus heavily on building human capital through educational expansion. Education, in turn, is assumed to improve employment prospects and household income, and to reduce undesirable demographic outcomes such as teenage pregnancy. A major problem with the education-centered approach to development is that educational expansion has often not been matched by a corresponding increase in graduate-level jobs. Many countries in the global South are characterised by high levels of informal, low-paid work and a scarcity of formal sector jobs. The combination of credential inflation and the lack of jobs have led to an increasing mismatch between occupational aspirations and labour market realities (OECD, 2017). As a result, millions of young people are stuck in a protracted “waithood” (Honwana, 2012): they are unable to achieve their desired careers, which restricts their ability to form independent families and attain other traditional markers of adulthood. High levels of graduate unemployment and underemployment also appear to contradict mainstream development narratives about the social and economic benefits of education. Youth unemployment and discontent are seen as a root cause of other social problems, such as radicalisation, crime, and irregular migration.

The problem outlined above is particularly pronounced in francophone West Africa, which has experienced rapid educational expansion in the last two decades, with an increasing number of people obtaining advanced secondary and tertiary degrees (see Figure 1). Against this background, the proposed mixed-methods project investigates to what extent education has delivered the expected benefits in terms of work, income, and family formation for young graduates—aged 16 to 35—in this region.

Financement : CAMPO - Programme de coopération University of Cambridge & Sciences Po. Responsable scientifique : Zachary Van Winkle. Période : 2024.

The Cost of Widowhood: A Matching Study of Process and Event

This project examines the mental health and economic consequences of widowhood in a novel way by assessing meaningful comparison groups allowing me to evaluate the impact of bereavement before and after the event. The analysis for focuses on two scenarios: unexpected and expected widowhood. The first scenario models a two-period process in which effects of widowhood occur only after the event. The second models a three-period process in which effects of widowhood also occur before spousal loss. HRS data and a combination of random-coefficient modelling, propensity score matching, and regressions are used to estimate the consequences of widowhood from ten years before to six years after spousal loss. Results on mental health show a slow but full recovery for unexpected widowhood, but larger and lasting declines for expected widowhood. Findings on economic wellbeing show sizable losses for expected widowhood due to the economic cost of the pre-widowhood period.

Financement : CIVICA (The European University of Social Sciences). Responsable scientifique : Zachary Van Winkle. Calendrier : 2024.

Race, discrimination and racial inequalities on both sides of the Atlantic

We propose a one-semester course directed at approximately fifteen undergraduates from both Sciences Po and from Columbia. The course takes a comparative perspective in discussing the concepts of race, discrimination and racial inequality on both sides of the Atlantic. The course has a particular focus on the U.S. and French cases, but empirical studies of other Western European countries will also be included. It presents the latest empirical evidence demonstrating the pervasiveness of race and addresses the different ways that race and ethnicity are conceptualized in Europe and the U.S. It examines the central role of race in shaping socioeconomic attainment in these two contexts, with attention to discrimination, segregation and inequality in education, in housing and communities, in the labor market, and in interactions with police and the criminal justice system. The innovation in the course lies not only in the joint use of the literature from these two different contexts but also in the systematic co-teaching that involves professors who conduct research on each side of the Atlantic, creating a virtual cross-country classroom that brings together thirty students who study social sciences at the two universities. The weekly seminar will use a hybrid format with the 15 students on each campus in a seminar room and with the fifteen students from the other campus connected via zoom in a joint class. Cross-campus interaction will be facilitated through the assignment of students into small working groups – each working group with students from both campuses – that meet weekly with the TAs in breakout rooms to produce projects that will be discussed in the joint class over the course of the semester. This approach will also encourage research and teaching collaborations between faculty and doctoral students from the two partner institutions.

Financement: Alliance Columbia (Programme associant Columbia University NY, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, École Polytechnique & Sciences Po). Responsable scientifique : Mirna Safi. Date : 2023.

A Holistic Approach to Social & Life Course Change in China (TIER)

Financement: Alliance Columbia (Programme associant Columbia University NY, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, École Polytechnique & Sciences Po). Responsable scientifique : Zachary Van Winkle. Date : 2023. Partenaire : Pekin University