About
PD Dr. Yasemin Niephaus is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Siegen, Faculty of Social Sciences. She holds a doctorate in sociology and completed her habilitation in 2016, earning the venia legendi in Sociology. Her academic career includes research and teaching positions at the Universities of Heidelberg, Cologne, Leipzig, and Frankfurt. Since September 2024, she has served as a Lecturer for Special Tasks at the University of Siegen, following her role as Senior Academic Councillor from 2019 to 2024.
Education:
- MA in Sociology and Political Science, University of Heidelberg (1997)
- Dr. phil., University of Heidelberg (2001)
- Habilitation in Sociology, University of Siegen (2016)
- Jean Monet Fellow, European University Institute, Florence (2003)
Her research spans population sociology, migration, social inequalities, health in migrant families, and the sociological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. She employs field-theoretical approaches to analyze social structures and inequalities. Her recent work focuses on student mental health during the pandemic and the lived experiences of Turkish migrant workers in Germany. She has authored and edited key texts in population sociology and contributed extensively to peer-reviewed journals.
Her recent publications reveal a strong trend toward crisis sociology, particularly examining financial stress and mental health among university students during the pandemic. She also maintains a deep engagement with historical and theoretical sociology, analyzing interwar German sociology and methodological foundations. Her interdisciplinary work bridges public health, education, and social policy.
Scientific Contributions:
- Author of monographs: Population Sociology, Economization, and The Birth Rate Slump in East Germany
- Co-editor of the Handbook of Population Sociology
- Lead researcher on student well-being during the pandemic
- Creator of the video installation Foreignness as an Act of Symbolic Violence
She advises on student matters through regular consultation hours and has participated in funded research, including a project on housing and everyday life of Turkish migrant workers supported by the Wüstenrot Foundation. She has collaborated widely with scholars across Germany and has contributed to public sociology through reviews and open-access publications. She is actively involved in teaching courses on demography, migration, and social theory.
Research fields
