Emma Dowling

Emma Dowling is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna's Faculty of Social Sciences, where she serves as Vice-Director of Studies for the Social Sciences Directorate of Doctoral Studies. Based in Room 205 at Rooseveltplatz 2, 1090 Vienna, she teaches courses including Sociological Research Practice, Welfare Regimes, and Social Reproduction in Crisis across 2024W-2025W semesters.

Her research centers on the care crisis as a dual crisis of waged care work and social reproduction, examining intersections with capitalism, ecological sustainability, and gendered labor. Key interests include the political economy of care, financialization of welfare systems, volunteering dynamics in austerity contexts, and climate justice linkages, with empirical focus on Germany, Austria, and the UK.

Dowling's 2022-2024 publications reveal consistent thematic trajectories: analyzing care as a site of capitalist crisis management, critiquing privatization through feminist political economy, and proposing solidarity-based alternatives. Her work spans academic journals, policy reports, and public media engagement, emphasizing the structural roots of care shortages beyond individualized solutions.

She received the Kurt Rothschild Prize for research that situates economic questions in broader social contexts and actively engages public debate on care systems.

As Vice-Director of Doctoral Studies, Dowling supervises PhD candidates in sociology while maintaining active grant-supported research on care infrastructure and sustainability. Her public scholarship includes frequent media appearances discussing austerity impacts on care workers, particularly in Irish and German contexts.