Zsuzsa Ferge was born in Budapest in 1931. She is an economist, having worked in the field of social statistics, sociology, and social policy and became professor of Sociology at Eotvos University in Budapest in 1988. She founded the first department of social policy in Hungary in 1989, becoming a Professor Emeritus from there in 2001. Her main field of interest in research  and teaching have been social structure, social inequalities, education, social policy, poverty, the social impact of the transition, on which she has written hundreds of papers. She was visiting  professor at French, English, American etc. universities. She is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, of the European Academy, and  the European Academy of Yuste,  and has a honorary degree  from Edinburgh University. She has published fifteen books.