Biography

Bence Kováts obtained his PhD in Sociology from the Corvinus University of Budapest in 2021 and received his MSc degree in Urban Studies as part of the 4 Cities Master's programme run by six European universities. He currently works at the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies in Békéscsaba, Hungary. In his research, Bence focuses on the political economy of housing. Specifically, he examines how global structural determinants and changes, and local path dependencies affect local housing-related political and social practices.

In his prior research, he examined the relationship between countries' positions in the world economy and characteristics of their housing systems such as the role of the family, the state and the market in housing access. In his PhD research, he analysed changes in the extent and form of parental support in young adults' housing access through Hungarian housing market cycles in the past decades.

As a Max Weber Fellow, Bence will pursue research about the influence of conservative ideology on housing policymaking in Europe. Through country case studies, he will look at mechanisms through which the conservative conception of housing as a family home is emerging as an alternative to the neoliberal and social democratic conceptions of housing.

Bence has taught Economic Sociology as well as his own course in Urban Studies at the university level.