Michael Gähler, professor in Sociology and head of the Department of Sociology. Photo: Leila Zoubir/Stockholm University

“One of the most pressing challenges for science is to retain public trust,” says Michael. “If people lose faith, we might as well pack up and go home. We must retain trust at any price and to do so we should be guided by what we can see on solid empirical grounds, rather than what we want to see or our ideological preferences.” 

Driven by curiosity

In his own research, Michael is most interested in using quantitative methods that reveal larger patterns in the population. He is driven by curiosity and the desire to respond to important social issues.

“There are thousands of questions out there to study. Once I begin reading about a subject and realise that I might be able to come up with an answer we don’t have yet, I can get excited about pretty much anything. No matter what the question, one generally finds that little research has been done and, even if it has, the results are often inconclusive. The most important thing for me is that I can provide a generalisable answer that applies to the entire population.” 

When choosing an education, sociology seemed like the broadest and freest discipline and one that suited Michael’s own interest in society.

“To me, sociology seemed perfect as you can study pretty much anything. I suppose I expected to end up at a ministry working as an investigator on government inquiries.”

Gähler’s path into the scientific community was relatively short. While still studying behavioural research, he started an internship at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) that led to employment as a research assistant on the 1991 Level of Living Survey. He was later admitted as a PhD student at SOFI. He worked there until 2018, when he was appointed as a senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology, where he now works as a professor and head of department.

Began to study the impact of divorce on children

While working as a research assistant at SOFI, Michael stumbled onto one of the two main paths of his research: the impact of divorce and separation on children and adults. He and his study-mate Martin Hörnqvist were involved in writing a book on the results of SOFI’s 1991 Level of Living Survey. Not yet doctoral students, the pair were each commissioned to write a chapter of the book. Michael was assigned the subject “The Swedish Family”, something that at first seemed slightly prosaic.

“Then I thought that maybe I should look at divorce. At the time, there was virtually no quantitative Swedish research about divorce and how it affects children and adults.” 

The Level of Living Survey, which follows the same respondents at 8–10-year intervals, gathers data on respondents’ upbringing, their parents’ education, class affiliation and so on. They are also asked whether they were exposed to conflicts such as divorce or separation during childhood and, as the survey follows the same cohort, it is possible to see how this affects their mental health in adulthood. 

Michael’s interest in the subject grew and he returned to it in his doctoral thesis and other studies. He points out that, while the impact of divorce on children is still an important issue, this was particularly true at a time when there was little concrete knowledge and many people had fixed ideas about how the children of divorce generally fared.

“Those with a political agenda to keep the family together at any price insisted that divorce was a disaster for children; on the other side, those with more liberal views denied that divorce had any negative effects and that it was primarily a matter of parents having the opportunity to leave a dysfunctional relationship. Our results suggested that, while there are negative consequences to parents divorcing, they may not be so extreme. It was important to demonstrate that, for children, while their parents divorcing is not necessarily a catastrophe, it is no dream scenario either.” 

“One should be exposed to criticism”

Michael’s other specialisation is labour-market inequality; for example, the prevalence of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender and parenthood and how becoming parents affects the development of men’s and women’s careers and salaries. In many of these studies, he has worked with his colleague at the department, Magnus Bygren. 

In one study, they sent fake job applications to employers in 15 to 20 different occupations to investigate discrimination in the labour market, such as whether employers discriminate against mothers. Somewhat surprisingly, the study showed that discrimination based on gender and parenthood was non-existent in recruitment, a finding that caused some reactions. 

“There’s a lot of talk about discrimination in the labour market but few have succeeded in showing that it actually exists. Some people were sceptical about our results, and quite rightly so; one should be exposed to criticism. We’ve laid this building block, now it’s up to others to build on it. Our study dealt with whether or not one is offered a job, but then there is the matter of what happens later in the workplace: is there discrimination then? That’s the next question, but let’s take one thing at a time.” 

In another study, they sent fake applications to investigate whether there was ethnic discrimination in recruitment. Some applicants were given Swedish names and others foreign names indicating roots in the Middle East or the former Yugoslavia. The applications were otherwise identical; the applicants had an equivalent Swedish education and qualifications and all applications were written in flawless Swedish. Here, it was clear that ethnic discrimination was widespread. 

“It was not as if they were never offered a job, but it was significantly less likely than for those with clearly Swedish-sounding names. Although discrimination was not extreme, the study showed that jobseekers with foreign names need to apply for more jobs.”

Crucial to maintain public trust

So, how does one maintain neutrality towards one’s results and thus retain the public’s trust in the research?

“We should strive to keep our personal beliefs, desires and ideological convictions as far away from the research as we possibly can; otherwise, we risk contaminating research with our own interpretation of what we see, making it difficult for people who hear us explaining our research to tell if we are speaking as scientists or based on our ideological convictions. Therefore, it can even be advantageous to focus the research on something where we have no strong opinions. Furthermore, it’s important to stay humble and accept that the results may change,” says Michael.

“It’s important not to fall in love with a given theory, ideology or result but to always be prepared to challenge your own ideas and beliefs.” 

Michael has no time for research in his current role as head of department, something that he misses. 

“As a researcher, you can sit in your office and think, write, read and calculate but as head of department you seldom have the time; instead, you’re dealing with a steady stream of situations. There’s not much time to sit and ponder.”

On the other hand, he does enjoy getting to know the department and university from the inside and the opportunity to get to know colleagues that he might not otherwise meet. He also enjoys teaching, although he has less opportunity to do so these days. Michael considers teaching to be just as important as research: training new sociologists who can make important contributions to society, even if by no means all of them will become researchers, maintaining the close connection to research and offering courses of the very highest standard. One of the department’s strengths he sees is the fact that its teachers are also highly competent researchers.

“In my opinion, good researchers have a much greater chance of becoming good teachers, but I also think that good teachers have every chance of becoming good researchers.” 

Sociology never stagnates

As far as Michael is concerned, one of the best perks of the job is being surrounded by intellectually curious people who have the same motivation he does: the desire to find things out. 

“You find out just how incredibly creative people around you are when it comes to finding exciting issues to study. I’m reminded everyday of how astonishingly complex our world is and how many different aspects of questions there are to be addressed.”

For Michael, one strength of sociology is that it is not bound by any specific theoretical perspective, even if this also means that sociologists occasionally find themselves at loggerheads regarding which methods or theories to apply. It can also be difficult to explain what the subject is to outsiders.

“Many people have no idea what sociology is and I’m sure that there are those who would have loved to have studied sociology had they known. At the same time, it is of the utmost importance that we allow a thousand flowers to bloom. In sociology, we are not confined to any specific issues, which is what makes sociology so interesting and liberated. This means that we never stagnate, which is always a risk in other disciplines in which everyone is very much in agreement,” says Michael.

Text: Elin Sahlin