Carla Hornberg

Carla Hornberg is a Researcher in the Department of Education and Labor Market at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) since June 2019, concurrently serving as a Fellow of the College for Interdisciplinary Educational Research (CIDER) since January 2024. Her work centers on labor market dynamics, educational pathways, and social inequality, with emphasis on vulnerable populations including low-skilled workers and young adults navigating economic crises and technological disruption.

Her educational background includes:

• B.A. in Sociology (major) and Communication Science (minor) from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (2012-2015)
• M.A. in Sociology – European Societies from Freie Universität Berlin (2015-2018), featuring an exchange semester at the University of British Columbia (2017)

Hornberg's research investigates how institutional structures mediate the relationship between education and labor market outcomes. She employs international comparative frameworks to analyze training disparities, digitalization's impact on work quality, and crisis-induced barriers to continuing education. Her methodology emphasizes quantitative analysis of large-scale datasets, particularly decomposition techniques assessing between/within-country inequalities. Current projects examine life-course inequality mapping (Mapineq) and technology's role in social stratification (TECHNEQUALITY).

Analysis of her 11 publications (2020-2024) reveals three dominant trends: (1) persistent training disadvantages for low-qualified workers rooted in workplace structures rather than individual characteristics, (2) crisis amplification of youth labor market vulnerabilities requiring targeted policy interventions, and (3) technology's dual role in both enhancing job satisfaction through task discretion and exacerbating inequalities through skill-biased impacts.

Scientific recognition includes:

• Fellowship at the College for Interdisciplinary Educational Research (CIDER), 2024-present

Hornberg leads research within WZB's Department of Education and Labor Market, directing the Mapineq project's labor market integration component while contributing to TECHNEQUALITY's policy briefs. Her grant-funded work involves collaboration with Heike Solga, Jan Paul Heisig, and international consortia including Turku's INVEST Research Flagship Centre. No doctoral supervision activities are documented, though her policy briefs indicate mentorship in research teams. Future work focuses on her dissertation examining education-continuing education-work quality relationships across institutional contexts.

She operates within WZB's interdisciplinary research ecosystem, notably contributing to the #IchBinHanna movement for academic reform while advancing quantitative sociological approaches to labor market inequality through the Mapineq and TECHNEQUALITY teams.