Neli Demireva completed an MSc in Sociology (supported by an FCO/OSI Chevening Scholarship) and a DPhil in Sociology at the University of Oxford, St. John's College (holding a Lamb and Flag Scholarship). She is currently a Nuffield College Research Fellow. Her DPhil thesis titled "Ethnic Penalties, Job Search and the British Labour Market" examines job search techniques as an indicator of the factors underlying ethnic penalization; and aims to improve the scholarly understanding of the role of social networks and structural assimilation in shaping the labour market outcomes of immigrants and their offspring.
Her research interests include ethnic minorities and their labour market performance, job search, social capital, social networks, diversity and community cohesion. Neli currently holds a five-year post-doctoral Leverhulme research fellowship at the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford. Neli has also been an active participant in the Ethnicity and Immigration Research Group of Economic Change, Quality of Life and Social Cohesion (Equalsoc) Network. For two years, she has been working on a collaborative cross-national Equalsoc project on the labour market trajectories of new immigrants in seven European countries. Her specific focus has been the British labour market and the occupational attainment of the increasingly Europeanized post-1990s immigration waves. She was also commissioned by Futurelab in collaboration with BECTA and the Instute of Ageing at Oxford University to comment on the ongoing changes within Britain's ethnic groups and the challenges that might be faced by them and British society in a future of rapid demographic transitions.
