Cassandra Engeman, PhD in Sociology, has been appointed Associate Professor (docent) at Stockholm University.
Cassandra Engeman. Photo: Magnus Dahl
Engeman joined SOFI as a postdoctoral researcher in 2017. She specializes in organized labor, social movements, and comparative social policy. Her research has been published in prominent journals, including Social Forces, Social Politics, Social Policy & Administration, and Work, Employment & Society.
She earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2016 and has previously held visiting research positions at Uppsala University's Department of Government and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
In 2025, Engeman will lead a research team investigating relationships between organized labor and care leave policies, supported by a 2024 Starting Grant from the European Research Council. Her current research explores how political regimes, trade unions, and women's political participation shape parental leave policies, particularly fathers' rights.
Engeman's research significantly contributes to our understanding of how social policies influence gender roles and caregiving practices. Her appointment as Associate Professor (docent) further strengthens her role as an expert in these areas, and we look forward to her continued contributions to the field.
Care leave – the right to take time-off from work to provide care – is a key ingredient for sustainable work and a rare area of welfare state expansion. As women now make-up a majority or near majority of union members in many countries, this project examines when and how trade unions mobilize for care leave policies and to what effect.
Research at the Social Policy unit includes investigating explanations for the development of the welfare state, as well as the effects of social policy on an individual and societal level, often in an international comparative perspective and with quantitative research methods.
