项目介绍

2026年5月9日

Lund University was founded in 1666 and is repeatedly ranked among the world’s top universities. The University has around 46 000 students and 8 500 staff based in Lund, Helsingborg and Malmö. We are united in our efforts to understand, explain and improve our world and the human condition.

Lund University welcomes applicants with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We regard gender equality and diversity as a strength and an asset.

Lund University School of Economics and Management is one of eight faculties within Lund University. More than 4 000 students and 450 researchers, teachers and other staff are engaged here in training and research in economic history, business administration, business law, informatics, economics, statistics, and research policy.

Lund University School of Economics and Management is accredited by the three largest and most influential accreditation institutes for business schools: EQUIS, AMBA and AACSB. Only just over 100 business schools in the world have achieved this prestigious Triple Crown accreditation.

The Department of Economic History is a research-intensive department that employs about 80 people: researchers, teachers, technical/administrative staff, and Ph.D. candidates. The department has a large PhD programme and co-ordinates three international Master programmes. The Department has a well-established reputation for wide-ranging research with an emphasis on long-term processes, and with economic theory and quantitative methods as important methodological tools. Strong research areas at the department include economic growth and structural change, innovation, energy and sustainability, development economics, and economic demography, as well as financial history and education and the labour market. More information is available at the Department’s website: www.lusem.lu.se/ organisation/department-economic-history.

From Private to Public Insurance: The Value of Women’s Unpaid Care Work and Its Economic and Health Outcomes, 1900–1986

Assigned duties

Those appointed to doctoral studentship shall primarily devote themselves to their studies, aimed to result in a doctoral degree. Work carried out during the studentship consists of participation in research projects as well as successful participation in postgraduate (third-cycle) courses. Those appointed to doctoral studentships may also work, to a limited extent, with educational tasks and administration at the Department of Economic History. However, duties of this kind may not comprise more than 20 per cent of a full-time post.

The PhD position is linked to the research project ” Greenspace Across the Life Course: Inequality, School Outcomes, and Later Health”. The PhD student will work within this project in close collaboration with other project members and be part of an interdisciplinary research environment with expertise in economic history, economic demography, GIScience, and environmental science

Eligibility/Admission Requirements

A person meets the general admission requirements for third-cycle courses and study programmes if he or she has:

• Been awarded a second-cycle degree; or
• Satisfied the requirements for courses comprising of at least 240 credits of which at least 60 credits were awarded in the second-cycle; or
• Acquired substantially equivalent knowledge in some other way in Sweden or abroad. (Higher Education Ordinance, Chapter 7, Section 39)

Specific admission requirements for doctoral studies in each subject are specified in the relevant general syllabus, available at https://www.lusem.lu.se/research/doctoral-studies.

Other requirements

A proficient level of English and a Scandinavian language is required in both written and oral communication.

Basis of assessment

Admittance of a doctoral student is based on an assessment of the candidate’s ability to benefit from third-cycle studies, see the general syllabus for third-cycle studies, available at https://www.lusem.lu.se/research/doctoral-studies.

The applicant’s ability to benefit from third-cycle studies and research will primarily be assessed on the basis of academic results from the first and second cycle.

• Quality and content of previous written work, such as a Master’s thesis.
• Ability to participate actively in the Department’s research environment.
• Ability to perform independent scientific work.
• Good knowledge of qualitative analysis using archival material and historical methods.
• Experience of work and/or training in quantitative methods.
• Proficiency in written and oral communication in English and a Scandinavian language.
• Relevant educational background in economic history, history, or other disciplines relevant for the project.
• Other relevant experiences for third-cycle education, such as research assistance or advanced analytical work in a research or policy environment.

Applicants should have a strong interest in studying the historical development of women’s work, insurance protection and well-being.

Project

The project examines how women’s unpaid care work was gradually excluded during the transition from private to public health insurance in Sweden, 1900-1986. It takes its starting point in the observed high female membership in Swedish private health insurances, where women had the right to sick pay for unpaid care work before the introduction of public health insurance in 1955. Contrary to portrayals of health insurances as a predominantly male sphere, we highlight women’s roles in shaping these systems. The project builds on perspectives that emphasise the economic significance of unpaid care work and draws on new ways of capturing women’s work and well-being.

The research will be conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Individual records from private health insurances, official published statistics and aggregated annual-report data will be used to analyse how the insurance value of women’s unpaid work changed and to study the influence of women’s unpaid care work on sickness incidence and cause-specific sickness. To deepen our understanding of how the shift from private to public insurance affected the justification and debate around the insurance of women’s unpaid care work, we will conduct a qualitative analysis of government investigations, professional journals, newspapers, and archival documents.

The PhD student will contribute to the empirical and methodological development of the project and will, to a certain extent, be able to choose which part of the project they wish to focus on.

Terms of employment

• Fixed-term employment, maximum four years (full-time studies). 
• Only those admitted to third-cycle courses and study programmes at a higher education may be appointed to doctoral student. 
• For regulations concerning employment of doctoral students etc., see the Higher Education Ordinance, Chapter 5, Sections 1-7. 
• For regulations concerning admission to third-cycle courses and study programs, see the Higher Education Ordinance, Chapter 5, Sections 34-41. 

Application procedure

Please use Lund University job application portal when applying: Work at Lund University | Lund University

The application must be written in English. 

The application should contain: 

• Personal letter in which the applicant gives a brief description of him/herself and his/her research interests and its relevance for the project indicating which part of the project he/she finds particularly interesting, maximum 3 pages.
• Curriculum vitae.
• Grade transcripts.
•  Master thesis or similar degree projects.
• If appropriate, documented language skills relevant for third-cycle studies.
• Other documents that the applicant wishes to submit. 

The applicant is encouraged to provide the names of a maximum of two teachers or researchers who are willing to provide references and the department can contact, but recommendation letters should not be included in the application. 

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