Mara Yerkes

Mara Yerkes was the principal investigator and project leader of the CAPABLE project. She is Full Professor of Comparative Social Policy in relation to Social Inequalities at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2006. Yerkes comparatively researches welfare states and industrial relations at national and local levels and how these relate to inequalities in work, care, communities and families. She particularly focuses on gender inequalities from an intersectional perspective. Yerkes is widely published on these topics, including numerous articles and book chapters, alongside five books, and is currently developing a book from the CAPABLE project.

She is a member of the longstanding International Network on Leave Policies and Research, a former co-chair of the European Social Policy Analysis Network (ESPAnet; 2019-2025) and former joint editor of Community, Work and Family (2019-2025). She regularly liaises with and advises on policy issues with the European Commission as well as national and local governments and often provides talks to both scholarly and stakeholder audiences, bridging academia and society.