Nora Waitkus

Nora Waitkus is a Professor of Sociology at Heidelberg University's Max-Weber Institute of Sociology and an Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the London School of Economics' International Inequalities Institute. Her research focuses on socio-economic stratification, wealth inequality, class dynamics, housing inequalities, and economic elites. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Bremen, an M.A. in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Hamburg.

Key research areas include: wealth concentration mechanisms, institutional drivers of inequality, cross-national comparative analysis, and media portrayals of economic elites. She employs methods like longitudinal household surveys, media data analysis, and survey experiments.

Her recent work emphasizes how redistribution policies moderate income-wealth linkages, the role of inheritance in wealth legitimacy, and gender disparities in wealth accumulation across occupational classes.

• Awards: RC28 Significant Scholarship Award, Aleida Hagenaars Memorial Award, NWO Talent Grant (VENI)
• Grants: VENI project on Varieties of Wealth, Wealth Conflicts within Families (TiU Grant)

She leads the Chair of Comparative Social Stratification at Heidelberg University and maintains active collaborations with institutions like Tilburg University and the University of Michigan.