Research project
L-earning: rethinking young women’s working lives
- Start date: 1 April 2023
- End date: 1 April 2026
- Funder: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
- Principal investigator: Professor Kim Allen, University of Leeds; Professor Rachel Cohen, City St. George's University of London
- Co-investigators: Professor Kate Hardy, Leeds University Business School; Professor Kirsty Finn, University of Manchester
- Postgraduate researchers:Dr Lilith Brouwers, University of Leeds
Description
Most young people do paid work before they finish school or college. For those who continue their studies at university, paid work is increasingly common due to rising student fees and a spiraling cost-of-living crisis. Girls and young women are especially likely to undertake paid work alongside their studies. Common jobs include babysitter, retail cashier and waitress, and – increasingly – many engage in income-generating activities involving digital platforms such as Etsy, Depop and Instagram.
Whilst previous studies have suggested that gender inequalities exist even in these early forms of work, we still know little about the detail of young people’s first experiences of work, nor how these may engender longer-term patterns and establish differences between men’s and women’s working lives that we know grow as workers get older. Indeed, even though young women now outperform men in education, and outnumber them in higher education, by the time they hit their 30s, working women experience a growing gender pay gap.
Research overview
The study’s overarching objective is to provide empirically evidenced, policy-relevant knowledge that advances theoretical understandings of young women’s working lives, and the experiences, knowledge, values and structural conditions that shape them.
To achieve this, we will utilise a range of methods to examine different phenomena, including: analysis of existing national surveys for drawing out large-scale patterns, trends over time and over individual life-courses; focus groups and interviews with 180 young women (14-29 years old) to drill deeper into key issues, including views on good work, past experiences and transitions, and hopes for the future; and interviews and roundtables with stakeholder representatives to ensure the research has broad impact.
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This project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council ‘Transforming Working Lives’ initiative, Grant reference: ES/W009870/1.
Publications and outputs
Journal articles
- “Equally Bad, Unevenly Distributed: Gender and the ‘Black Box’ of Student Employment”. British Journal of Sociology. Zhong, M.R., Cohen, R.L., Allen, K., Finn, K., Hardy, K. and Kill, C. (2025), Available here. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-4446.13210
Briefings
- “Earning while learning: student employment”, May 2025. Allen, K., Brouwers, L., Cohen, R.L., Finn, K., Hardy, K., Kill, C., and Zhong, M.R.
Media
- “Bemoaning students’ need to work is short-sighted and counterproductive”, Times Higher Education, April 2024. Zhong, M.R., Cohen, R.L., Allen, K., Finn, K., Hardy, K. and Kill, C.