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Kathryn Hartley

Department, Institution: Social Research Institute, UCL
UBEL Pathway: Knowledge Evidence and Policy
Supervisor: Professor Alison Koslowski (Principal); Emeritus Professor Margaret O’Brien
Contact details: kathryn.hartley.17@ucl.ac.uk
About Me

I am a research student at University College London. Before starting my PhD, I taught French and Mathematics in urban state secondary schools and managed a languages department for several years.

My undergraduate degree was in French and Education and I completed an MA in French Language and Culture while I was teaching. I then studied policy and research methods at UCL, where I obtained an MSc Social Policy and Social Research. During this time, I worked as part of a systematic review team at UCL looking at the role of social capital and volunteering through the Covid-19 pandemic, and have co-authored two publications on this topic.

Through my supervisory team I have joined the COST Action international research project ‘Parental Leave Policies & Social Sustainability’ as a Working Group member. This project aims to advance and disseminate knowledge about the significance of paid parental leave policies for sustainable societies.

My Research

My PhD research investigates the interplay between social class, parental leave policy and the workplace, in shaping the way that UK families can combine paid work and care. It aims to understand how leave is used by parents without a tertiary level of education, and the role of the workplace in defining opportunities for families to balance work and care within the context of a UK statutory policy that offers limited financial support.

The project uses a mixed methods design to analyse the variation in work and care outcomes and then to investigate how the organisational context influences patterns of work and care. Statistical and longitudinal methods will be used to describe and analyse data from the available sweeps of Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, which will then inform a case study approach with employers.

Impact of My Research

Strong and sustainable societies support families to have time to care well and provide financially for their children. This research offers the potential to increase understanding of the accessibility and usability of existing parental leave and related work-family policy from the perspective of employers, as well as employees in the UK. Embedding the insight of key stakeholders, such as third sector advocacy groups and workers’ unions, in the research process will support the applicability of the findings to the real-world context. The research is of relevance to families, employers, and policymakers. Publication of the results of both phases of the project, including dissemination of the findings to stakeholders, will support the usability and impact of the work.