Academic Profile

People Feature

Jan O Jonsson

Official Fellow
Professor of Sociology

Research Interests: Social stratification.

My main research areas are social stratification, such as studies of intergenerational processes and inequality of opportunity, and ethnic integration and inequality. ​My interests include social mobility and the class structure, educational inequality, poverty, family, ethnic inequality and integration, as well as the wellbeing of children and youth. Since 2009 I am the Swedish PI for the international study CILS4EU, on ethnic integration of youth, a study that is followed up in my ERC Advanced grant project Ineqint (Inequality and integration), which started in 2025. Between 1998 and 2016, I was the director of the Swedish level of living survey.

Jan O Jonsson I
Attribution:

Tom Weller Photography

Publications

Carina Mood and Jan O. Jonsson. 2025. “Persistent boundaries. Partnership patterns among children of immigrants and natives in Sweden.”  Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 52(3): 635–663. (DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2025.2478215)

Per Block and Jan O. Jonsson. 2025. “The socio-organisational embeddedness of work-life mobility.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility.Volume 97, June 2025, 101032. (DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101032)

Olivia Spiegler, Jan O. Jonsson, and Chloe Bracegirdle. 2025. “Religious Development from Adolescence to Early Adulthood among Muslim and Christian Youth in Germany: A Person-Oriented Approach.” Child Development 96(1): 141–160. (DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14151).

Jan O. Jonsson and Carina Mood. 2023. Karriärer och Barriärer. En ESO-rapport om skolgång och etablering för unga med utländsk bakgrund. ESO-rapport 2023:8. Stockholm: Regeringskansliet. ISBN 978-91-525-0683-7 (245 pages).

Chloe Bracegirdle, Jan O. Jonsson, and Olivia Spiegler. 2023. “Neither Friend nor Foe: Ethnic Segregation in School Social Networks.” Socius: (DOI: 10.1177/23780231231214956)

Jörg Dollmann, Jan O. Jonsson, Carina Mood, and Frida Rudolphi. 2023. “Ethnic gaps in Swedish upper secondary school completion: Is ‘immigrant optimism’ the problem?” European Sociological Review 39: 384–399 (DOI: 10.1093/esr/jcad023)

Jan O. Jonsson, Carina Mood, and Georg Treuter. 2022. Integration bland unga. En mångkulturell generation växer upp. Göteborg and Stockholm: Makadam förlag. ISBN 978-91-7061-398-2 (292 pages). https://www.iffs.se/publikationer/bocker/integration-bland-unga-en-mangkulturell-generation-vaxer-upp/

Stephanie M. Plenty and Jan O. Jonsson. 2021. “Students’ occupational aspirations: Can family relationships account for differences between immigrant and socioeconomic groups?” Child Development 92 (1): 157-173. (DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13378)

Richard Breen and Jan O. Jonsson. 2020. “Sweden, the middle way? Trends and patterns in social mobility and educational inequality”, pp. 69-90 in Breen, R. and W. Müller (eds.) Education and Intergenerational Social Mobility in Europe and the United States, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Per Engzell, Carina Mood, and Jan O. Jonsson. 2020. “It’s All about the Parents: Inequality Transmission across Three Generations in Sweden”, Sociological Science 7:242-267. (DOI: 10.15195/v7.a10)

F. Kalter, J.O. Jonsson, F. van Tubergen, and A.F. Heath (eds.). 2018. Growing Up in Diverse Societies: The Integration of the Children of Immigrants in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy. ISBN 978-0-19-7266-37-3.

P. Gregg, J.O. Jonsson, L. Macmillan, and C. Mood. 2017. 'The role of education for intergenerational income mobility in the US, Great Britain, and Sweden.Social Forces 96 (1): 121-152. (DOI 10.1093/sf/sox051)

C. Mood, J.O. Jonsson, and S.B. Låftman. 2017. 'Immigrant youth’s mental health advantage: The role of family structure and relations.Journal of Marriage and Family 79 (April): 419-436. (DOI:10.1111/jomf.12340)

Jackson, M., Jonsson, J.O., and F. Rudolphi. 2012. “Ethnic Inequality and Choice-Driven Educational Systems: A Longitudinal Study of Performance and Choice in England and Sweden.” Sociology of Education 85: 158-178.

Breen, R. and J.O. Jonsson. 2005. "Inequality of Opportunity in Comparative Perspective: Recent Research on Educational Attainment and Social Mobility"Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 31, pp. 223-43.

R. Erikson and J.O. Jonsson (eds.): Can Education Be Equalized? The Swedish Case in Comparative Perspective. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

A full list of publications can be found on my research page.