Jutta Allmendinger

Jutta Allmendinger (born 26 September 1956) is a German sociologist who has been serving as professor of educational sociology and labor market research at Humboldt University since 2007. She was president of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center from 2007 to 2024.

She is also a senior fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

Allmendinger studied sociology and social psychology at the University of Mannheim and sociology, economics and statistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1989, she earned her Ph.D. in social studies at Harvard University.

Allmendinger worked at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin from 1988 and 1991, followed by an employment at Harvard Business School (1991/92). From 1992 to 2007, she was a full professor of sociology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (on leave from 2003 to 2007). She also served as director of the Institute of Employment Research (IAB) at the Federal Employment Agency in Nuremberg from 2003 until 2007. Between 1999 and 2002 she was chairperson of the German Sociological Association.

In April 2007 Allmendinger became president of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and was appointed professor of educational sociology and labour market research at Humboldt University of Berlin. Since 2012 she has also been an honorary professor of sociology at Free University of Berlin.

Allmendinger's research interests focus on social inequality, education, and labor markets.

Allmendinger is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). She served as a member of the advisory board of the Commissioner of the German Federal Government for Migration, Refugees and Integration, Maria Böhmer. When Federal President Joachim Gauck announced in June 2016 that he would not be available for reelection, Allmendinger was soon mentioned by German media as likely successor.

More recently, Allmendinger was appointed as chair of the Zukunftsrat of the Hesse State (inaugurated by Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel) and to the German government's so-called "coal commission", which was tasked to develop a master plan on how to phase-out coal as an energy source and create a new economic perspective for the country's coal-mining regions.