Serge Paugam

Information

Biography

Serge Paugam is a sociologist, director of research at the CNRS and director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales. Born in Brittany, he spent his teenage years in Plérin in the 1970s. He defended his thesis at the EHESS in 1988 and joined the CNRS the following year. He has taken part in numerous research projects in France and abroad on poverty, inequality and the breakdown of social bonds. He was elected director of studies at EHESS in 2001, holding the chair of « Sociology of Inequalities and Social Ruptures ». He founded and directs the journal Sociologie and the collection « Le Lien social » published by PUF. He has published and edited a number of books, including La Disqualification sociale (PUF, 1991), Le Salarié de la précarité (PUF, 2000), Les Formes élémentaires de la pauvreté (PUF, 2005), Repenser la solidarité (dir. PUF, 2007), Ce que les riches pensent des pauvres (Seuil, 2017). He has just published L'attachement social. Formes et fondements de la solidarité humaine (Seuil, 2023). He is currently a long-term visiting professor at the University of São Paulo, where he is conducting an investigation into aspirations and strategies for upward social mobility in working-class neighbourhoods.