I am an interdisciplinary scholar who uses quantitative methods to explore questions related to family, gender and well-being over the life course. My initial research interests were in the study of family finances, in particular debt, and how life course events pushed individuals into problematic debt. I furthered these interests by exploring the issue of debt at the European level. This has led me to co-author a European report on Over-indebtedness for the DG Health and Consumers of the European Commission. Similarly, I co-authored the book chapter 'Debt: Beyond Homo Economicus' in the Cambridge Handbook of Psychology and Economic Behaviour where we attempted to provide novel insights into the social and psychological dimensions of debt. Recently, I was awarded funding by the International Social Research Foundation to carry out a collaboration looking at debt accumulation and inequality in Europe using the EU-SILC.

Further interests include exploring intra-household inequalities particularly in the area of gender, labour market and well-being. My research explores the intrahousehold inequalities that arise from combining work and family and how different forms of work may impact on these inequalities. A recent paper looked at how job satisfaction impacts on first time mothers return to work. Results showed that job satisfaction in different domains may increase attachment to the labour market, hence placing emphasis on the need to improve job quality to retain female workers after childbirth. Currently, I am looking at intrahousehold inequalities within ‘parent carer’ households to understand how the care for a disabled child impacts on the way couples redistribute paid, unpaid and emotional work.

My expertise in quantitative methods has led me to collaborate with clinical teams in the UK and US to design and analyse a global survey on parental perceptions of the SARS-Cov-2 vaccine amongst oncology families. The findings contributed to the design of UK and international guidelines on covid vaccination for oncology children.