Kathleen Kiernan

Professor Kathleen Kiernan is an Emerita Professor at the School for Business and Society, University of York. Her academic career includes roles as Professor of Social Policy and Demography at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion. She specializes in families, inequalities, child well-being, and family change in developed countries. Her research uses longitudinal data from UK birth cohort studies and comparative European/US data. She has held visiting roles at Australian National University and Princeton University.

Key research interests include poverty’s impact on parenting and child outcomes, parental relationships, and the effects of parental separation. She leads projects like the IFS Deaton Review on UK inequalities and the Nuffield Foundation-funded Families and Inequalities study. Awards include an OBE (2006) and British Academy Fellowship (2012).

Her work spans over 30 years, with publications analyzing family structures, cohabitation trends, and child development. Notable collaborations include projects on parental mental health, ethnic density effects on health, and the Born in Bradford cohort study. She sits on committees such as the Deaton Review Panel and served as Vice President of the European Association of Population Studies.