Success and failure in the early modern economy, the rise and decline of the Soviet Union, convergence and divergence in living standards around the globe, and the extinction of whales. Methodological interests include simulation, the integration of biological and social models, statistical and nonstatistical approaches to analyzing data sets.

Statistical epidemiology. Recent emphasis on occupational epidemiology and, in particular, the use of routinely collected national data for investigating the effect of social and occupational factors on health. Statistical methods in epidemiological research.

Empirical sociology in general. Sociology of religion, educational inequality, consequences of social mobility, pro-social behaviour, political sociology and more recently criminology.

Medical sociology. Interests include the evaluation of health care, the measurement of patient satisfaction, health status and quality of life.

Sociology of economic life. Comparative research on employment experience and attitudes to work; attitudes to social inequality; the social implications of unemployment.

Analytical Sociology; Signalling Theory and Applications; Trust and Minicry; Organised Crime.

The sociology of electoral behaviour. The sociology of social class and ethnicity.

Analytical sociology. Interests focus on action-based theorising, micro-macro links, and quantitative methods appropriate for analyzing such processes.

Research methods and data analysis. Also theoretical work on the normative assessment of actions. Work in developing microcomputer packages for data analysis; the empirical application of methods of data analysis in the study of social mobility, electoral behaviour and industrial relations.

Family sociology/demography, focusing on how health and well-being are related to socio-demographic transitions in the life course and how the family affects individuals’ health outcomes. Explaining why these relationships vary among societies and change over time is another aim of his research.

Statistical inference for network dynamics; Exponential random graph models; joint modelling of social influence and social selection.

Current Thesis Titles in Sociology Include:

D Phil

Social Inequalities and participation in Higher Education in Britain

The Impact of Social Stratification and Economic Inequality on Individuals' Health: An Analysis of Great Britain and Spain

Enclosures in Scotland: An Economic Analysis of Institutional change

Rational Choice Models of Female Employment and Fertility under Different Welfare Regimes

The Changing Nature of Family Formation in Ireland 1920-2000

The Determinants of Socio-Economic Differences Among Ethnic Groups in an Immigrant Absorbing Society: Israel 1972-2000

Early Childhood Intervention and Parent Involvement

Skill creation systems in a comparative perspective: Germany, Denmark and the UK

The Effect of Social Policy Transformation on Resource-Based Gender Inequalities: the Hungarian Experience in Comparative Perspective

Theories of Low Fertility and Childnessness: Towards a New Synthesis

Labour Market Flexibilisation: Qualities of Employment, Equalities of Outcome

Unpacking the Class Effect: A Study into the Mechanisms Sustaining Social Class Stability

The Changing Experience of the Self-Employment in Britain, 1986-2001

Beliefs about Gender Inequality: A Comparison of Great Britain and Russia

Towards Segmented Assimilation or Second-Generation Decline? Bangladeshi Youth in East London