Dr Wendy Olsen
Lecturer in Socio-Economic Research

Tel: 0161 275 3043
Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 4722
Wendy.Olsen@manchester.ac.uk

 	Room  G11
	CCSR
	School of Social Sciences
	Kantorovich Building
	Humanities Bridgeford Street
	University of Manchester
	MANCHESTER
	M13 9PL
	

Interests
Projects
Publications
Downloads

I joined CCSR in 2002 and I work simultaneously for the Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM) also at Univ. of Manchester (50:50).  I had previously taught sociology, development economics, and research methodology. I teach statistics and PhD research methodology as well as computerised qualitative data analysis, the comparative method, the case-study method, and political economy of inequality.  I have release from some of my teaching duties due to research projects.  In future I hope to teach about the sociology of economic life a la Thorstein Veblen, Ralph Fevre and others.  Meanwhile I am fostering the use of mixed-methods research among statistical and other researchers.

Current Research Projects

Research Interests:

My research focus on labour relations includes social aspects of economic decisions as well as economic aspects of social structures. The country case research I have conducted includes India , Sri Lanka , Ghana , and the UK . My PhD students in the past also did research in Ecuador , Nigeria , Vietnam , and Bangladesh . I welcome applications for PhD research on gender and labouring; attitudes to work; panel data analysis of poverty, labour-force participation and hours of work; and part-time work. I especially want students working in/on Pakistan , South India , Germany , China and the labour-market activity of immigrants to the UK/Europe.

I have a specialism in methodology that would probably influence any PhD student who works with me. I work under the holistic assumption that market and non-market social relations are closely woven together. I wish to link political economy -- notably moral economy -- to any substantive research project. As a result, 'triangulation' (using both qualitative and quantitative data, or even using the case study method in conjunction with our secondary-data analysis) is likely to be part of your methodology. In CCSR we are also interested in linking large-scale data sets, such as the census, to smaller sample surveys.  The former can fill in gaps in the latter.  In IDPM we have a particular focus on well-being, happiness/satisfaction, poverty indicators, indices of deprivation and multi-dimensional poverty.  Please mention my name in your PhD application if you do decide to apply to do research on one of these topics.  See also IDPM's PhD research pages for further details of suggested research projects.

Current Projects:

Tenancy and Employment Trajectories in Rural South India

The Global Poverty Research Group (www.gprg.org) has various working papers and projects. My project within this five-year Research Programme funded by Economic and Social Research Council examines the employment trajectories of people living from farming and related activities in rural south India . I have examined labour-force participation, the moral economy of work, and gendered work patterns (including especially the unremunerated work women so often do) so far. I am now looking at the work of people who rent land _in_ , ie tenants. My data sources include the national sample survey for India ( NSS ) and local village survey data as well as interviews (underway). By triangulating these sources I am finding out what role tenancy plays in poverty alleviation. So far it appears that tenancy is part of livelihood strategies of the less-poor and it reduces the severity of their poverty. However the role of tenancy is differentiated by class and by region. Closer analysis is underway and will use multiple correspondence analysis of livelihood portfolios. So far this research has mainly been about the effects of economic poverty on work. However it is hoped to expand this to the question of empowerment (hence to more political aspects of poverty) as the project reaches its conclusion around 2007/8.

Objectivity and Mixed-Methods Realist Research

My research under all my funded projects has led me to question the traditional 'divide' between QUAL and QUANT. In doing so I have worked on realist reconceptualisations of objectivity as a bridging mechanism through which we link US (the 'me') to THEM (the 'other') and hence create a revised, reflexive understanding of reality. In other words objectivity has huge subjective and even inter-subjective components. The objective reality, which is better termed 'the real', also is substantively and strongly constituted by people's subjectivities. Current research questions in this area include: what is the epistemology of statisticians? what values are associated with their knowledge-claims? What value is there in ordinal measurement and how does social theory inform our choice of measures? When we use cluster, factor, or correspondence analysis, aren't we actually doing objective bridging work? Don't we iterate between theory, empirical investigation and analytical frames? -- hence, aren't we purposive creatures? If so -- and I think this is correct -- then neither induction nor deduction is a good description of the mode of inference that we normally use 'as statisticians'. I and my colleagues in the International Association for Critical REalism are re-writing the textbook for what scientists do when they do the very best science. Value freedom plays a new role which is much more of a pro-pluralism than an anti-values role. Updating the role of values in science is badly needed in British social statistics. My work on this project is leading to contributions to textbooks on 'the case study method', 'methodology for village studies', 'updating Eurocentric social theory for Asian contexts', 'heterodox economic research methods' and others.

Women Returners to the Labour Market

Contemporary and Historical Census Collection Project (CHCC).

The Gender Pay Gap in the UK and Gendered Work Histories

Factors Contributing to the Gender Pay Gap, UK 2000
(The Pay Gap was £2.58, ie women £7.37 and men £9.87 per hour)

Wendy Olsen is currently working together with Alan Warde, Dale Southerton and Shu-Li Cheng on a comparative international project analysing time-use diaries of men and women. Her specialist areas also include

debt-bonded labour and the regulation of labour markets;

feminist analyses of labour relations;

methodological pluralism (especially across the qualitative-quantitative "divide");

inter-disciplinary socio-economic analyses of social exclusion;

globalisation, democracy and gender - a project using panel data for 150 countries.

Her publications include Rural Indian Social Relations (OUP, 1996); The Politics of Money (Pluto, 2002, team-authored); The Impact Of Women's Position In The Labour Market On Current UK Productivity, with S. Walby (www.dti.gov.uk and the Stationery Office, 2002); and "Contract Labour and Bondage in Andhra Pradesh (India)", Journal of Social and Political Thought, June, 1:2, www.yorku.ca/jspot (direct link: www.yorku.ca/jspot/2/wkolsenrvramana.htm; 2000).

Recent Publications