Missions

The CMH is recruiting a post-doctoral researcher in quantitative sociology for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). The sociological analysis of tastes and consumption now faces two challenges: to study not only differences in tastes but also their evolution over the life course of individuals or households; and to link household tastes and consumption to their environmental or health impact. To meet these challenges, you will take part in two multidisciplinary research projects, in which you will develop a sociological approach to changes in tastes (preferences in the terms of these projects) in relation to social inequalities, food consumption and the environmental and nutritional characteristics of products. Your task will be to describe and analyse the dynamics of households' stated preferences in terms of the environment and health, as well as the possible discrepancy between stated preferences and the environmental and nutritional impacts of observed consumption. Describing the social heterogeneity of households from these two angles (dynamics of preferences, gap between preferences and consumption) is central to the issues of social inequalities in health and environmental justice.

These questions will be addressed from the perspective of the sociology of food, using statistical panel data. The aim is to examine the extent to which food tastes vary over the course of a lifetime and between social groups, depending on life events, using current sociological theories (gender, theory of practices, dispositions, symbolic boundaries, etc.). We will be using the Kantar panel, which contains data on the characteristics, opinions and food purchases of several thousand households monitored over the period 2011-2022, and which has been enriched with nutritional and environmental characteristics of food products. The recruitment is part of two multidisciplinary research projects. PREFALIM is a multidisciplinary project funded under the PEPR FairCarbon programme, which is looking at carbon cycles and the ecological, agronomic and socio-economic levers and trajectory scenarios for achieving carbon neutrality and restoring natural resources in continental ecosystems.
The PREFALIM project aims to produce quantitative simulations of the economic, social and environmental trajectories of food systems under the impact of public policies leading to changes in consumer food preferences and variations in international food prices. It brings together researchers in economics, sociology and geosciences. DynAPol-3P is a project funded by the PEPR SAMS that aims to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of household food preferences and consumption and their interactions with changes in population structure, supply and public policies. It brings together sociologists and economists specialising in consumption and the analysis of public food policies. Under the responsibility and supervision of the person in charge of the corresponding tasks in the two projects, and in partnership with the various research teams associated with this project (INRAE-PSAE, INRAE-SMART, Toulouse School of Economics-INRAE, LMD-Ecole Normale Supérieure, iEES-Sorbonne Université), you will refine the research questions, carry out the corresponding statistical analyses and write one or more scientific publications.

Activities

- Specify research objectives with regard to the Kantar data, and the complementarity between the sociological and economic approaches to tastes/preferences developed in the projects;
- Design and implement the relevant statistical analyses to address these research objectives, and document these analyses;
- Take part in project meetings, present preliminary results and discuss them with the teams;
- Present results at an international conference;
- Write two working papers, and submit at least one as an article to a scientific sociology journal.

Skills

- Designing and carrying out statistical analyses and manipulating databases in R and/or Stata software.
- Sociology: designing a research question, writing a scientific publication
- Fluency in English at C1/C2 level -
Good experience in writing scientific articles for a specialist audience

Appreciated:
- Experience of statistical analysis of general population surveys;
- Experience of handling complex surveys involving several tables/data files, and of implementing multivariate quantitative techniques in sociology (factorial analyses, regressions or equivalent)
- Knowledge of sociology on topics such as : social classes, consumption, lifestyles, life courses, environment

Soft skills
- Ability to work as part of a team and be accountable
- Autonomy, taking initiatives
- Organisation, thoroughness and ability to summarise
- Interest in interdisciplinary research.

Work Context

You will a member of the Centre Maurice Halbwachs (CMH). The CMH is a social science research unit specialising in the analysis of social structures and inequalities. This uniqueness is already well identified in the French and international sociological landscape: it is based on a solid capacity for methodological innovation, combining longitudinal exploitation of large-scale databases and qualitative or ethnographic methods, deployed at national level as well as in international comparisons.
You will have a workspace in a shared office, a computer, and access to the ENS-Jourdan library and the CMH's scientific facilities and activities. Data access servers have a distant access.

The position is located in a sector under the protection of scientific and technical potential (PPST), and therefore requires, in accordance with the regulations, that your arrival is authorized by the competent authority of the MESR.