Dimitris Pavlopoulos is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). He is also an ERC laureate (2019). He started his scientific career as a contract (junior) researcher in 2001 at the National Centre for Social Research in Athens-Greece. He subsequently carried out his PhD project with title 'Wage Mobility Patterns in Europe' from 2003 until 2007 at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. After completing his PhD, he was employed at the research institute CEPS/INSTEAD (currently LISER) in Luxembourg where he worked as a postdoc for the International Master in Social Policy Analysis that was given by CEPS/INSTEAD and the University of Leuven (KULeuven). From 2009 until 2012, he was working at the VU, first at the department of Methods and Statistics and then for the department of Sociology. As from January 2020, he is working as an Associate Professor at the department of Sociology.

Flexible employment is in the heart of scientific and political debate in Europe. Especially during the ongoing economic crisis, governments and employers see employment with non-standard contracts as a way to achieve flexibility that will allow them to overome the crisis. The research of Dimitris Pavlopoulos focusses on this topic at both the individual and the cross-country comparative perspective. His current research focusses on the socio-economic effects of flexible employment and aims at increasing our understanding on the role of flexible employment in the life course. In particular, his research tries to identify when flexible employment contracts are a stepping stone to good and long-lasting employment relations and when it leads to a trap of precarious jobs and unemployment. Furthermore, his research studies the role of labour market institutions and welfare states in shaping the role of flexible employment. In this way, he aims at improving our knowlegde on how we can labour markets can deal in the best way with economic crises.

The research of Dimitris Pavlopoulos has also a strong quantitative methodological component. The socio-economic data that we use in labour market research, either survey or register data, are not error-free. For this purpose, his research studies the application of Hidden Markov Models in the process of the correction of measurement error. His recent publication in Survey Methodology has illustrated that more than half of the mobility from fixed-term to permanent employment is not real.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Social Sciences 2021-22: 

• Research Methods in Communication Science (MSc in Communication Science)
• Master Thesis (MSc in Sociology)  

• ERC CoG (Consolidator) grant for the project "Righting the Wrongs. A Life Course Dynamics Approach for Non-Standard Employment". Year of award: 2019. Duration 1/9/2020 - 31/8/2025. Budget: €1,996,377
• NWO Research Talent scheme for the PhD project “Non-Standard Employment: Prospects or Precarity?”. Year of award: 2016. PhD candidate: Lucille Mattijssen. Role: main applicant. Budget (financed by NWO): €218,474
• PhD project “Error correction in the measurement of temporary employment”. Year of award: 2015. PhD candidate: Paulina Pankowska. Co-financed (75%) by Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Role: co-supervisor/co-applicant. Budget (financed by the CBS): €170,348
• “The effect of flexible employment on the labour market: a longitudinal approach”, project with the Observatory on Economic and Social Development – Labour Institute, Greek General Confederation of Labour.  Year of award: 2013 and 2014. Role: principal investigator. Budget: €20,000

• Statistics Netherlands (CBS) | Den Haag | Affiliated researcher | 2021-01-15 - 2025-12-31

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