The ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MiSoC) is a multidisciplinary centre of quantitative social scientists engaging in cutting edge research and providing evidence with which to address key societal challenges. MiSoC has been based at ISER at the University of Essex since 1989, but it features strong collaborations with other universities in the UK as well as abroad. The current research programme is run jointly with researchers at the University of Bristol, the University of Bologna, and the University of Technology in Sydney.

Our work offers robust and high-quality research evidence and brings it to policymakers, assisting them in the development of policies and programmes which equalise opportunities and create greater fairness in our society.”

— Professor Emilia Del Bono, Director

Research areas

Education and skills

Acquisition of skills during school and higher education, the productivity of skills in the labour market, a specific focus on social and emotional development and mental health

Families and well-being

The role of parents in early child development, the emergence of gender differences, ageing, caring, and the intergenerational transmission of social behaviour

Ethnicity and migration

Ethnic inequalities in education and the labour market, intergenerational mobility, use of transnational data sources to allow comparisons across borders

Labour markets and institutions

Family relations and gender roles, changing housing and labour markets, inequalities in living standards and wellbeing

Methods and machine learning

Machine learning for causal analysis, on-line genealogy data, innovations in measurement including genetic and epigenetic and the elicitation of expectations and risk

News

abstract photo of people in a web
MiSoC Workshop on Subjective Expectations
Families, households and health in ageing populations
European Social Science Genetics Network Conference 2023 opens in Bologna

More news

Publications

Photo: books on a shelf
Who wears the face mask? Preventive measures against COVID-19 in Latin America before vaccination
  1. Pilar Zueras
  2. E. Rentería
  3. A. Gómez-Casillas
‘Boomerang’ moves and young adults’ mental well-being in the United Kingdom
  1. Emily Grundy
  2. Jiawei Wu
Cared and uncared populations: understanding unmet care needs of older adults (65+) across different social care systems in Europe
  1. Pilar Zueras
  2. Mariana Calderón‑Jaramillo

More publications

Commentary

Teachers are quitting – here’s what could be done to get them to stay
Joshua Fullard
How did levels of UK hate crime change during and after Covid-19?
Renee Luthra, Alita Nandi
Universal free school meals would make a huge difference to the cost-of-living crisis – here’s how
Angus Holford

Events

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More events

Contact

ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MiSoC)
Institute for Social and Economic Research
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
Essex
CO4 3SQ
UK

Email: iser@essex.ac.uk
Follow us on Twitter @MiSoC_Essex