Kitty Stewart

Kitty Stewart serves as Professor in the Department of Social Policy and Associate Director of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics and Political Science. With a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute in Florence, she brings over two decades of research experience to her role, having joined CASE as a post-doctoral researcher in 2001 after working at UNICEF's Innocenti Research Centre.

Her educational background includes a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute, Florence, establishing her interdisciplinary approach that bridges economics and social policy analysis.

Stewart's research focuses primarily on child poverty, social security policies, and early childhood education and care systems. Her work examines the impact of welfare reforms on family wellbeing, with particular attention to larger families and ethnic minority groups. She employs mixed methods approaches to investigate how cash support for children affects family finances, how benefit caps influence housing choices, and how welfare conditionality shapes parental behavior. Her research demonstrates how policy design affects both immediate family wellbeing and long-term intergenerational outcomes, with recent work highlighting the intersection of poverty, ethnicity, and welfare conditionality in the UK context.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent focus on welfare conditionality and its consequences, particularly examining the two-child limit and benefit cap policies. Her research demonstrates how these policies create poverty traps, disproportionately affect ethnic minority families, and fail to achieve their stated employment incentives while increasing hardship. She has developed innovative conceptual frameworks, including the 'adult-behavior-orientated' policy category, to better understand contemporary welfare reforms.

• Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
• Trustee of the Education Policy Institute
• Trustee of the Child Poverty Action Group

Stewart leads multiple significant research projects including 'Family finances: What difference does cash support for children make?' funded by the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, which examines the Scottish Child Payment, and a four-year Nuffield Foundation study on 'Benefit changes and larger families' investigating the two-child limit and Benefit Cap. Her work frequently employs mixed methods approaches combining quantitative analysis with in-depth qualitative interviews to capture both statistical trends and lived experiences of policy changes. She regularly contributes to policy debates through CASEbriefs and engagements with organizations like the Child Poverty Action Group.

As Associate Director of CASE (Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion), Stewart works within one of the UK's leading research centers focused on poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. CASE operates within LSE's Department of Social Policy and maintains strong connections with policymakers, third sector organizations, and international research networks. The center's multidisciplinary approach enables comprehensive analysis of social policy issues from economic, sociological, and political perspectives.