A study with Oxfam UK into precarious work shows the strong policy benefits of doctoral research.

Research into increasingly widespread precarious work in labour markets has in recent years been a particular focus within the Work and Equalities Institute (WEI) at Alliance Manchester Business School.

One ongoing project is being headed by PhD researcher Eva Herman who, thanks to a CASE studentship, has been looking at the care and hospitality sectors in the UK in order to better understand the causes and consequences of precarious work, and how it also affects men and women in different ways.

CASE studentships, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), provide an opportunity for PhD researchers to gain first-hand experience of work outside an academic environment, with the student working on a doctoral project supported by both expert academic supervisors and a co-supervisor from a non-higher education partner organisation.

During her study Eva has been co-supervised by Oxfam GB which has been conducting its own research into precarious work and low pay, and which has specifically built up a number of connections with academics at WEI to help inform its own policies and initiatives.

Eva said: “I specifically wanted to find out how employers shape certain types of work in different types of sectors, and deliberately chose care and hospitality as I had previously worked in both industries. Also, while the care sector is dominated by women, in hospitality the gender split is much more even which enables us to look in-depth at gender issues too.”

Eva conducted interviews with employers, workers and volunteers. She explains: “Our key finding was that in order to understand the shape that precarious work takes you need to explore how contracts, time and income interact with each other. Precarious work cannot be judged by looking at any one of these alone.”