Postdoctoral Researcher / Scientific Collaborator: Social Production Satellite Account for Switzerland 80 - 100 %

Job description

### The University of Zurich, Switzerland's largest university, offers a range of attractive positions in various subject areas and professional fields. With around 10,000 employees and currently 12 professional apprenticeship streams the University offers an inspiring working environment on cutting-edge research and top-class education. Put your talent and skills to work with us. Find out more about UZH as an employer! ### Your responsibilities * Aligning the established social production method with European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), adapting how it is applied and reported while preserving the underlying methodology. * Mapping the social production categories to available SAKE data, assessing coverage, and conducting a gap analysis of categories not yet captured. * Compiling and analysing the relevant Swiss data sources to produce the pilot account's first estimates. * Building the account into a working statistical product, documented and reproducible so that it could be updated on a regular cycle by Switzerland and/or other nations wishing to adopt the approach. * Co-authoring research and policy outputs, including a joint report on social production in Switzerland. * Preparing a methodological report setting out options to extend category coverage, with recommendations for Switzerland and a generalisable approach that other national statistical offices could follow. * Working in person within the National Accounts Division and liaising across FSO units to resolve questions of definition, derivation, and method. * Maintaining reproducible workflows and documentation consistent with official statistics standards. Your profile Essential: * A doctorate in economics, applied statistics, or a quantitative social science or data science. * Familiarity with national accounts concepts and conventions (ESA 2010), ideally including satellite accounting. * Demonstrated skills in handling survey and time-use microdata. * A strong command of time-series and index methods, including constant-price adjustment. * A translational research orientation, comfortable working across an academic research team and a national statistical office and communicating with policy audiences. * Working proficiency in German or French, together with English. Desirable: * Experience with time-use surveys or unpaid-work modules in labour force surveys. * A systems-oriented perspective on demographic change, the care economy, fiscal sustainability, and the intersection of market and non-market production. * Experience working in or with a statistical office or national accounts setting. * A record of peer-reviewed publication and technical reporting. What we offer: * The opportunity to build the first social production satellite account established within a national statistical office, an innovation in national accounting with international reach. * A role embedded in official statistics while contributing to frontier research, with training in the social production accounting method from the University of Sydney's Mental Wealth Initiative. * Support through co-supervision across the three partners and connection to an international research and policy network spanning ageing, health, and economic measurement. * Employment on University of Zurich terms, with salary set according to UZH and Canton of Zurich guidelines for postdoctoral researchers. * A clearly defined three-year horizon to deliver a programme of work with direct policy relevance. Working arrangement and independence: The position is employed by the University of Zurich Healthy Longevity Centre. Working time is divided between the FSO National Accounts Division in Neuchâtel, where the day-to-day work sits, and the UZH Centre for Healthy Longevity, with research supervision shared between the partners under a light joint-oversight arrangement. A clear separation is maintained between FSO-hosted research and official statistics, and no output carries the FSO's name without its approval. The underlying method is published and open.