Laura Rosa Berro Yoldi

Profile

I joined the PhD program at Leeds University Business School in October 2023, funded by the Work and Employment Relationships Department. 

My doctoral research is about the Au Pairing scheme in the UK, where we live in multiple crises: the global care crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, and the childcare crisis in the United Kingdom. The research aims to explore and understand the current macroeconomic political decisions that lead people to become Au Pairs and to hire Au Pairs in the UK. The investigation intersects work, gender, migration and class, and it tries to understand all the inequalities and vulnerabilities that face the subjects of this research. 

Preceding this PhD, I studied for the GEMMA Master’s degree in Gender Studies at the Universities of York (UK) and Granada (UK). My master’s thesis was on the situation of Au Pairs during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK (https://digibug.ugr.es/handle/10481/80304). Before the GEMMA Master’s Degree, I participated in the Municipalist Movement in Spain. Through the political group “Aranzadi Pamplona en Común – Iruña Denon Artean”, I became the City Councillor of Equality and LGBT policies of the City Council of Pamplona (Spain) in 2015. Nowadays, I collaborate with the organisation AKAFEM and the Athena SWAN Self-Assessment LUBS Team.

Research interests

Intersectional feminism: gender, migration and class.
Domestic work in the global economy and the care crisis: the conflict between capital / human life. 
Domestic workers and the platform economy.
The migration regime and its intersections in the United Kingdom.

Conferences 

• Exposition: “Au Pairs: from cultural exchange to recognized workers in the UK”  | During the Making Rights Reality: The Human Rights of Undocumented Migrant Workers Conference 2024 | The Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law (ACMRL).

Book Presentations

• Host and organiser of the online presentation of the book “The Sexist Microphysics of Power”, by Nerea Barjola | Co-organised with Patricio Simonetto, head of the Center for Intersectional Gender Studies of the University of Leeds. 

Qualifications

• MA GEMMA Gender Studies, Universities of York and Granada
• Diplomado de Comunicación, Derechos Humanos, Género y Diversidad
• Degree in Advertising and Public Relations

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change