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About me

I’m a labour market researcher and PhD student in sociology. My research focus is on active labour market policies, public employment services, working careers and informal employment. In addition to research, I occasionaly teach quantitative methods at the Faculty of Social Sciences. 

Currently I'm working on the project "Employment and Social Security Careers of the Population out of Labour Force", aiming to study how social security helps or hinders people from entering into meaningful work careers.

As a part of the finished research project "Public employment services: part-time work, temporary work and transitions into full-time employment" (2021-2022), I examined whether there are hidden “bureaucratic traps”, which make the benefit claimants hesitant to accept short-term and part-time job opportunities.

My forthcoming PhD thesis (Exposing the Hidden Economy of Europe: Three Empirical Studies on Informal Employment) aims to provide new empirical evidence on the causes and conditions of informal employment in Europe, as well as the gender inequalities in informal employment.

Research topics

labour markets, work life, informal employment, atypical employment, part-time employment, precarisation, grey economy, active labour market policies, public employment services

Research unit

Work Research Centre (WRC), https://research.tuni.fi/wrc/

Selected publications

Kauhanen, M., Ojala, S., Mäkinen, N., Kyyrä, T. & Pesola, H. (2022). Palvelujärjestelmän toiminta: osa-aikatyö, tilapäinen työ ja siirtymät kokoaikatyöhön. Valtioneuvoston selvitys- ja tutkimustoiminnan julkaisusarja 2022:25.