C. Katharina Spies is a professor for educational and family economics at the Free University in Berlin and the acting head of the department for "educational economics" at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). She is part of the Research Group of the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) at the DIW Berlin. Katharina is a member of several advisory boards on the federal and state level. Her main research interest is in the field of early childhood research.