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Dr Jennifer Whillans

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

I am a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, based at the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) (2017-2020). I received a BA in Sociology and an MSc in Cross-cultural Social Research Methods (Sociology) from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in Social Change from the University of Manchester. I joined the University as a Research Associate in 2011 and have worked on projects about eating out, food waste, one-person households, and health inequalities. The title of my current research project is (De)synchronisation of people and practices in working households: The relationship between the temporal organisation of employment and eating in the UK.

My primary academic focus is time use research. Specifically, I am interested in the timing of activities across the day and week (utilising sequence data in addition to time budget data) and the (de)synchronisation and coordination of people and practices that occurs in daily life. My research takes a mixed method, comparative design. I use Optimal Matching Analysis, Multilevel regression modelling, and survival analysis with survey data and also use in-depth interview and Mass Observation material. A mixed methods approach ensures that individuals’ understandings and experiences of time are interpreted alongside empirical evidence of the systematic and structured nature of daily uses of time revealed in quantitative and representative analyses. Drawing upon a wealth of historical secondary data, dating from 1975-present, I examine changes in time use over this period. 

Selected documents

Matthews, K., Nazroo, J. & Whillans, J. (2017) The consequences of self-reported vision change in later-life: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, Public Health, 142, pp. 7-14.

Abstract

Objectives

Using longitudinal data, we investigate whether deterioration and improvement in self-reported vision among people aged 50 years and older in England experience subsequent changes in various aspects of economic, psychological and social well-being.

Study design

Longitudinal random effects modelling.

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Whillans, J. & Nazroo, J. (2016) Social Inequality and Visual Impairment in Older People, The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences.

Abstract

Objectives: Visual impairment is the leading cause of age-related disability, but the social patterning of loss of vision in older people has received little attention. This study’s objective was to assess the association between social position and onset of visual impairment, to empirically evidence health inequalities in later life.

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Whillans, J., Nazroo, J. & Matthews, K. (2015) Trajectories of vision in older people: the role of age and social position. European Journal of Ageing, pp. 1-14.

Abstract

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Whillans, J. (2014) The Weekend: The Friend and Foe of Independent Singles, Leisure Studies, 33(2), pp. 185-201.

Abstract

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Whillans, J. (2011) Review of books: Time poverty: The unequal distribution of temporal autonomy, Time and Society, 20, pp. 137-140.

Book Review

Robert E. Goodin, James Mahmud Rice, Antti Parpo and Lina Eriksson (eds), Discretionary Time: A New Measure of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Link to full review

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