dr Joukje Swinkels is a researcher and lecturer at the Sociology department of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Sociology). She obtained a master’s in Sociology (cum laude) and received a PhD in Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2022. She is a member of the Social Gerontology Research Group, a member of the social functioning and Informal care group of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) and a faculty member of the Responsible Ownership for Enterprise Families (ROEF) program. She also conducts research within the VU Centre of Enterprose Family Reserach (CEFR).

Her PhD research focused on informal care, especially from the spouse and spousal caregiver's burden.  She used the Andersen-Newman and Informal Care Model to explain informal care use and adaptations of the Pearlin Stress Proces model to explain caregiver's burden. Her work has been published in The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, The Gerontologist, Ageing & Society, Aging and Mental Health  and Journal of Aging & Health. 

For her research on informal care, she employed data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA), a longitudinal and cohort-sequential study with almost 30 years of information on the physical, cognitive, social and emotional functioning of Dutch older adults.

For her research on caregiver's burden she used data from the Older Persons and Informal Caregivers Survey — Minimum Data Set (TOPICS-MDS). TOPICS-MDS is designed to capture information on the physical and mental well-being of older persons and informal caregivers in the Netherlands. The Dutch National Care for the Elderly Program, initiated by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, was established in 2008 to promote proactive, integrated health care for older persons with complex care needs. Dutch projects collected data among older care recipients and on their primary informal caregiver https://topics-mds.eu/.

In her work, she aims to combine individual, relationship and context theories of care use and caregiving with sociological theories of social change that also explain care use and care giving.

She received two NWO mini-grants as well as various awards and nominations.

Next to the  fundamental research as described above she does also more applied research for other organisations, for example the yearly Nationaal Vrijheids Onderzoek (NVO) research of the national committee 4 5 may   and other dutch projects, for example for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. 

Next to research she also teaches theoretical and statistical courses at the department of Sociology ( Sociology) and the Responsible Ownership for Enterprose Families (ROEF) course.

• Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei | Amsterdam | assistent onderzoeker | 2021-11-16 - 2026-12-25
• NVG KNOWS | Amsterdam | Bestuurder | 2025-05-01 - 2029-05-01

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