Karsten Hank

Research focuses

Population aging; intergenerational family relations; sociology of health; demography; life-course analysis; cross-nationally comparative research; Key Research Initiative: Demogaphy & Social Inequality;

Curriculum vitae

• Since 2022 Fellow, Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), Wiesbaden
• 2015 Visiting Professor, Dept. of Social Sciences, Health & Medicine, King’s College London
• 2014 - 2016 International Research Fellow, Dept. of Social Sciences, Free University Amsterdam
• 2010 to date Full Professor (W3) of Sociology at the Department of Sociology & Social Psychology, University of Cologne
• 2006 Habilitation (in Sociology), University of Mannheim
• Since 2004 Fellow, German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin
• 2003 - 2010 Head of the Research Unit ‘Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe’ at the Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA), University of Mannheim
• 2002 Dr. rer. pol. (in Sociology), University of Rostock
• 1999 - 2003 Pre-/Post-doctoral Researcher in the Laboratory of Contemporary European Fertility and Family Dynamics at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock
• 1998 Diplom-Sozialwissenschaftler, University of Bochum

Selected publications

• Hünteler, B., Hank, K., Alburez-Gutierrez, D., & Leopold, T. (2026). A typology of younger adults’ nuclear and extended family relation in the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family, 88, 284-298.
• Hank, K., et al. (2025). A new data infrastructure for family research and demographic analysis: The German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA). European Sociological Review, 41, 316-328.
• Hank, K., Hill, P.B., Kopp, J., & Steinbach, A. (2023). Familiensoziologie – Eine kompakte Einführung (6th, revised edition). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• Arránz Becker, O. & Hank, K. (2022). Adult children’s estrangement from parents in Germany. Journal of Marriage and Family, 84, 347-360.
• Hank, K. & Steinbach, A. (2021). The virus changed everything, didn’t it? Couples’ division of housework and childcare before and during the Corona crisis. Journal of Family Research, 33, 99-114.
• Ellwardt, L., Hank, K., & Mendes de Leon, C.F. (2021). Grandparenthood and risk of mortality. Social Science & Medicine, 268, 113371.
• Vidal, S., Lersch, P.M., Jacob, M., & Hank, K. (2020). Interdependencies in mothers’ and daughters’ work-family life course trajectories. Demography, 57 (4), 1483-1511.
• Steinbach, A., Mahne, K., Klaus, D., & Hank, K. (2020). Stability and change in intergenerational family relations across two decades. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 75, 899-906.
• Guertzgen, N. & Hank, K. (2018). Maternity leave and mothers’ long-term sickness absence. Demography, 55, 587-615.
• Lersch, P.M., Jacob, M., & Hank, K. (2018). Long-term health consequences of adverse labor market conditions at time of leaving education. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 59, 151-168.

Interview

Contact information

Karsten Hank

Phone: +492214701789
Email: hank(at)wiso.uni-koeln(dot)de
WWW: https://dss.uni-koeln.de/en/