Martin Kohli (born 8 May 1942 in Solothurn, Switzerland) is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the European University Institute (EUI) in Fiesole/Florence and Professor (ret.) at Freie Universität Berlin.
Life
Martin Kohli attended high school at the Kantonsschule Solothurn and spent a year as an AFS International Scholarship recipient at the high school in Upland, California. After graduating from high school in 1962 and serving in the Swiss military, he studied sociology and economics in Geneva, Cologne and Bern until 1968. The following three years, he worked as an educational consultant in the Education Directorate (Ministry of Education) of the Canton of Zurich, before becoming a research assistant at the University of Constance in 1971. In 1972, he received his doctorate (Dr. rer. pol., summa cum laude) from the University of Bern, and in 1977 his habilitation at the University of Constance. In the same year Kohli was appointed full professor in sociology (initially AH5/C3, from 1985 C4) at the Free University of Berlin. In 1985 he founded the Research Group on Aging and the Life Course (FALL), which he directed together with Harald Künemund. In 2004 Kohli was appointed full professor in sociology at the European University Institute in Fiesole/Florence, which he held until 2012. Since then, he has been Distinguished Bremen Professor at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS).
Between 1985 and 2012, Kohli undertook several research visits and visiting professorships, including at Harvard University (1989), Stanford University (1989), Columbia University (2000), and University of California, Berkeley (2012). From 1984-85 he was a Member of the Institute of Advanced Study (Princeton), from 1995-96 a Fellow at the Collegium Budapest, and from 2000-01 a Fellow at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (Delmenhorst).
In addition to his research and teaching activities, Kohli was (co-)editor of the book series "Lebenslauf-Alter-Generation“ (Life course-Age-Generation), European Societies and „Biographie und Gesellschaft“ (Biography and Society). He was also a co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Soziologie (Journal of Sociology), Zeitschrift für Sozialisationsforschung und Erziehungssoziologie (ZSE) (Journal of Socialization Research & Sociology of Education), and BIOS - Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung und Oral History (Journal of Biographical Research and Oral History), and a member of the editorial board of numerous other journals, including Ageing & Society, Advances in Life Course Research, and Lien Social et Politiques. From 1997-99 he was president of the European Sociological Association (ESA).
Martin Kohli has been a regular member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1995, and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 2001. In 2002, Martin Kohli received the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Aging and Life Course Section of the American Sociological Association. He has been a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America since 2005 and an Honorary Member of ESA since 2010. In 2014, Martin Kohli received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern.
Research focus
Martin Kohli's research interests are in life course, generational and aging research and related research fields (family, population, work, welfare state).