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Professor Stefan Kühner

MA (York), PhD (York)

  • Honorary Fellow of Comparative Social Policy

Visit Professor Stefan Kühner's profile on the York Research Database to see a full list of publications and browse his research related activities.

Areas of expertise

  • Comparative and global social policy analysis
  • Social investment and productive welfare policy
  • Child wellbeing and benefit stigma
  • Partisan theory and historical institutionalism
  • Comparative research methods

Academic biography

I joined the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, where I am now Associate Professor and Director of the BSocSci (Hons) Programme in Social Sciences and MSocSci Programme in Comparative Social Policy (International). I am also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences. 

My general academic interest centres on comparative and international political economy of welfare with emphasis on the policies and politics of welfare state change in historical perspective. Specifically in Hong Kong, my research spans across various social policy issues over the life course. As such, I have examined the social gradient in multi-dimensional child wellbeing, the experiences of young people with changing school-to-work transitions, the effects of working family support on gendered labour market outcomes, and the effects of zero pillar pensions on poverty alleviation and coverage rates among the elderly. I am also now developing new research projects examining the benefits stigma and shame faced by various societal groups across East Asia.

I am co-author of the The Short Guide to Social Policy (2nd Edition, 2015, Bristol: Policy Press) and the Unicef Innocenti Report Card 13, Fairness for Children. A League Table of Inequality in Child Wellbeing in Rich Countries. My latest peer-reviewed research is available in Social Policy & Society, the Journal of Asian Public Policy, the International Journal of Social Welfare, and the Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy.

Professional activities

  • Co-editor of the book series, Research in Comparative and Global Social Policy, launched together with Policy Press.
  • Secretary of the East Asian Social Policy Research Network.
  • Centre Fellow in the Centre for Social Policy and Social Change at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.

Stefan Kuhner

Contact details

Professor Stefan Kühner
Honorary Fellow
School for Business and Society

http://stefan-kuehner.com/

Twitter @stefankuehner