Juho Härkönen
PhD, Docent
jupehar@utu.fi |
Stratification, life course, demography, family, health, comparative research, quantitative social research
I am Professor of sociology at Stockholm University and Visiting Professor at the University of Turku, I have an MA in sociology from the University of Turku (2001), a PhD from the European University Institute (2007), and I am docent in sociology at the University of Turku (2009). After my PhD, I was a postdoc at Yale University (2007-09) and have worked as researcher (2009-12), Associate Professor (2012-16) and Professor (2016-) at Stockholm University. I have also held visiting appointments at the University of Turku since 2010.
I am Co-Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Life Course Research as of 2017 https://www.journals.elsevier.com/advances-in-life-course-research/
My research covers questions of the formation of social inequalities over the life course, such as the causes and consequences of divorce and family structures, occupational and labor market mobility, the social correlates and consequences of health, and the impact of childhood experiences on later socioeconomic outcomes. My research is based on quantitative methods on cross-sectional and longitudinal, and often, cross-national data.
Recent works
Härkönen, Juho, Bernardi, Fabrizio, & Boertien, Diederik. 2017. Family dynamics and child outcomes: An overview of research and open questions. European Journal of Population
Härkönen, Juho. 2014. Birth order effects on educational attainment and educational transitions in West Germany. European Sociological Review 30(2): 166-179.
Manzoni, Anna, Juho Härkönen and Karl Ulrich Mayer. 2014. Moving on? A growth-curve analysis of occupational attainment and career progression patterns in West Germany. Social Forces 92(4): 1285-1312.
Härkönen, Juho, Kaymakcalan, Hande, Mäki, Pirjo and Taanila, Anja. 2012. Prenatal health, educational attainment, and intergenerational inequality: The Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 Study. Demography 49(2): 525-552.
Frequently cited
Härkönen, Juho and Dronkers, Jaap. 2006. Stability and change in the educational gradient of divorce. A comparison of seventeen countries. European Sociological Review 22(5): 501-17.
Dronkers, Jaap and Härkönen, Juho. 2008. The intergenerational transmission of divorce in cross-national perspective: results from the Fertility and Families Surveys. Population Studies 62(3): 273-88.
Härkönen, Juho and Erik Bihagen. 2011. Occupational attainment and career progression in Sweden. European Societies 13(3):451-79.
I teach a) quantitative methods (such as event history analysis, panel and growth curve analysis, multilevel modelling), b) substantive courses on life course research, demography, stratification, and family sociology, and c) thesis writing.
In addition to Stockholm University and the University of Turku, I have taught these topics at the European University Institute, ENSAE/CREST, Yale University, University of Tampere, and Karolinska Institute.
- The Very Early Antecedents of NEET: Understanding the Role of Birthweight (2026)
- Social Policy Blog
- Associations between maternal socioeconomic, psychosocial and seasonal factors, infant characteristics and human milk cortisol concentrations (2021)
- American Journal of Human Biology
- Parental divorce in childhood does not independently predict maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy (2020)
- BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
- Education is the strongest socio-economic predictor of smoking in pregnancy (2018)
- Addiction
- Diverging destinies in international perspective: Education, single motherhood, and child poverty (2017) Härkönen Juho
- Family dynamics and child outcomes: Key findings and unresolved questions (2017)
- European Journal of Population
- Parbildning och –upplösning (2017) Demografi: Befolkningsperspektiv på samhället Turunen Jani, Härkönen Juho
- Parental Separation and School Performance Among Children of Immigrant Mothers in Sweden (2017)
- European Journal of Population
- Single-mother poverty: how much do educational differences in single motherhood matter? (2017) Härkönen Juho
- Differences in Parental Separation Effects on School Grades across Immigrant Backgrounds in Sweden (2016) Erman Jeylan, Härkönen Juho



