Jesper Fels Birkelund

Jesper Fels Birkelund is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on education systems, ethnic inequalities, and social mobility, leveraging advanced statistical methods on register and survey data. He teaches courses such as Basic Statistics, Sociology in Danish Society, and Advanced Welfare, Inequality, and Mobility. His work has been published in journals like Social Forces and European Sociological Review.

His research on education examines how schooling impacts cognitive and social-psychological skills, influencing long-term labor market outcomes. He has shown vocational training enhances conscientiousness, yielding earnings comparable to academic tracks. In ethnic inequality studies, he analyzes high aspirations among immigrant students despite poor academic performance, proposing counterfactual models to assess systemic challenges for minority students.

In social mobility research, he explores how parental resources (human, cultural, social, economic capital) shape children’s career trajectories, particularly when parents and children share the same field of study. He uses firm linkage data to study mechanisms like parental networks and inherited family businesses.

• Awards: 2022 ECSR Prize for Best PhD Thesis
• Teaching: Basic Statistics (BA), Sociology in Danish Society (BA), Education and Social Inequality (BA/MA), Advanced Welfare, Inequality, and Mobility (MA)

His work integrates micro-class approaches with intergenerational transmission theories, contributing to debates on educational policy and labor market equity. Office hours for Spring 2025: Monday 15:00–16:00 in room 16.0.57.