Solhee Han and Kun Lee, DPhil students in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, have been selected to receive prestigious Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy research grants in the social sciences for the 2022 award year. They are among 25 scholars who have received the grant in recognition of their work addressing contemporary issues in social sciences.
Solhee Han receives the recognition for her research project ‘Welfare State Financing and Redistribution and its Impacts on Public Attitudes’. Solhee also received a special Joshua Feigenbaum Award for an outstanding project in the area of ‘arts, popular culture, and mass communication.’ Solhee conducts comparative studies on welfare state financing and redistribution through taxes and transfers and its impacts on public attitudes towards the welfare state. The project examines the levels and structures of both taxes and transfers to explain the redistribution outcome including the net tax-benefit balance across income groups. It explores how one's net paying or benefiting position besides income affects attitudes towards the welfare state by matching data on taxes, transfers, and attitudes.
Kun Lee receives the award for his proposal ‘Social Inequalities of Public Pensions in Aging Welfare States: A Comparative Perspective.’ Kun's research is concerned with multidimensional social inequalities associated with extending working lives in ageing welfare states. His research particularly relates individual-level inequalities of labour market risks, income and well-being to macro-level institutions across welfare regimes, such as pension systems and labour market institutions, which are intended to promote old-age employment.
Mary Curtis-Horowitz, Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy said: “The awards are competitive: the twenty-five applicants who are receiving awards this year represent less than 5 percent of those who applied. Although many of the proposals were on topics of social and political importance, the Foundation’s Trustees consider these proposals to be particularly strong, and vibrant examples of how policy research can help meet the challenges of today’s complex society.”
