I’m chief researcher at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and adjunct professor in sociology at the University of Turku. I’m also researcher at the INVEST Research Flagship Centre . I gained my PhD in Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. I’m currently leading the SustAgeable consortium (Economic and social sustainability across time and space in an ageing society) funded by the Strategic Research Council. My research interests cover social inequalities in all forms, social sustainability, intergenerational transmission of disadvantage, poverty dynamics, and mental health. I enjoy interdisciplinary collaboration and often work in the intersection of sociology, social policy and economics. I mainly apply quantitative methods to longitudinal register data, but I’m also interested in cross-national comparative research with EU-SILC, for example.
Spring 2026: research visit at the University of Lausanne
I'm spending two months at the LIVES centre (Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research) in the spring 2026. If you are around, please come and say hi. I'm working together with Prof. Leen Vandecasteele on multigenerational poverty with Finnish register data.
Most recent publications
- Dobewall, H., Vaalavuo, M., Böckerman, P., Viinikainen, J., Sirniö, O., Kantojärvi, K., Pehkonen, J., Raitakari, O., Lehtimäki, T. (2026). Nature's Curriculum: Genes Linked to Educational Attainment and Adult Socioeconomic Status Across Birth Cohorts in a Nordic Welfare State. Demography. https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-12550847
- Grotti, R., Aradhya, S., Vaalavuo, M., Sirniö, O. (2026). Poverty Dynamics in Early Childhood among the Native-Born Children of Immigrants in Sweden and Finland. European Journal of Population. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-026-09772-y
- Vaalavuo, M., Holster, T., Skogberg, N., Kuusinen, H. (2025). An analysis of health care cost convergence among new immigrants and natives in Finland. Journal of Migration and Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmh.2025.100386