Thijs Bol

Thijs Bol (1985) obtained a MSc degree in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam in 2008. The main research object during his study was the welfare state, resulting in a master thesis about solidarity and occupational pension funds in the Netherlands called "Solidarity in the Second Pillar. Differences in solidarity within and between Dutch pension funds". During the last two years of his study he also taught courses in sociological methods, social institutions and sociological theory at the department of Sociology and Antropology.

In 2008 Thijs started with a PhD-project called Productive Skills, Positional Good or Social Closure? Three Mechanisms for the Education Effect on the Labour Market Across Structural-Institutional Settings, funded by NWO under the supervision of Prof. dr. Herman van de Werfhorst. The aim is to give contextual explanations for the education effect on labour market. While most studies solely look at the strength of an explaining mechanism, this research studies explaining mechanisms for the education effect on labour market in their structural-institutional settings. Instead of doing a 'mechanism contest' we try to reach a conditional understanding of the importance of mechanisms. Data gathered on individual level will be matched with aggregate data on industry and country level in order to reach this understanding. In this way the project contributes to the sociology of education and labour market, but also leads to insights in the study of institutions.