This is the webpage for the exciting new joint project of Work Autonomy, Flexibility and Work-life Balance project, based at the University of Kent, and Equal Parenting project based at the University of Birmingham which aimed to gain insights on how work and home-life have changed throughout the lockdown period and how these changes might have a profound impact on both, the future of work and gendered cultural norms around care in the UK.
Study Purpose and Rationale
The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020 and the UK government announced a comprehensive lockdown across the entire country on the 23rd March 2020, which limits all unnecessary travel and ask all non-essential workers to work from home where possible. These changes have had a dramatic impact on people’s lives, working patterns and family relationships. In this research we aim to understand how this pandemic, the lockdown and working from home has influenced a range of work-life issues and preferences and attitudes on flexible working for workers in the UK.
Survey
We have conducted a survey of working population focusing mostly on working parents with children under the age of 18. The survey data was collected between 22nd of May to the 15th of June – when the UK government has announced workers who cannot work from home can go back into their offices/work places.
Report
To download the full report please click below:
Click here for more information about the survey participants’ profile.
We will be publishing more results as we go along hopefully through journal articles. When they are published we will post them here so watch this space!
Researcher Contact Information
This research project is a joint project by researchers based at the University of Kent and the University of Birmingham. It has gone through and has been approved by SRC Ethics Panel of the University of Kent School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. For more information about your rights as a participant, please refer to the University of Kent’s privacy notice: https://research.kent.ac.uk/researchservices/privacy-notice/
For more information about this research you can contact Dr. Heejung Chung. H.chung@kent.ac.uk