Professor Kathleen Kiernan

BA MSc PhD OBE

Professor of Social Policy and Demography

Biography

Kathleen Kiernan joined the department in October 2004 she was previously Professor of Social Policy and Demography at the London School of Economics and Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, at LSE. Prior to LSE she was Research Director at the Family Policy Studies Centre in London; Deputy Director of the Social Statistics Research Unit at City University; a Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and she began her career with the MRC on the National Survey of Heath and Development. Much of her research uses longitudinal data from the British Birth Cohort Studies including the 1946, 1958, 1970 and the Millennium Cohort Study and more recently comparative data from a range of European countries and the USA. In 2003 she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences, Australian National University and from 2004 has been an annual Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Child Research and Well-Being at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, USA. She was member of The Good Childhood Inquiry and currently is a member of the Family Commission and Vice President of The European Association of Population Studies. In 2006 she was awarded an OBE for services to Social Science.

Research

Current research interests and projects:

Poverty, Parenting and Child outcomes
Ethnic gaps and gradients in child outcomes
Parental Depression and Child outcomes
Comparative analysis of Unmarried Parenthood and Child Outcomes in the UK Millennium Cohort Study and the US Fragile Families Study
Children’s Health Disparities in the US and the UK: The Role of the Family

Research teams

Professorial Fellow Institute of Effective Education.

National Institute for Health Research: Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research (CLARCH) Member Maternal and Child Health Group CLARCH with Professor Kate Pickett and Dr Karen Bloor (Health Sciences).

Visiting Professor Institute of Social Change, University of Manchester Comparative Study on Family Change in the UK and US with Professor Sara McLanahan and Dr John Homes.

NIH-ESRC funded project on Child Health Disparities: Professor Sara McLanahan ( Princeton University) Dr Margot Jackson ( Brown University) and Dr Sigle-Rushton, (LSE).

Current professional activities

Trustee Population Investigation Committee 2003-
Member Steering Group British Cohort Studies 2004-
Trustee One plus One 2005- and Member of Research Committee
Member of UKLHS Scientific Committee 2007-
Vice President European Association Population Studies 2008-

Selected Publications

Forthcoming publications

Kiernan, K. E. and Mensah, F. K. (forthcoming Feb 2010) 'Unmarried Parenthood, Family Trajectories, Parent and Child Well-Being,' in: Hansen, K., Joshi, H., and Dex, S., (eds) Children of the 21st Century: From birth to age 5, Policy Press. Available online [PDF].

Kiernan, K. E. and Mensah, F. K. (forthcoming) 'Poverty, Family Resources and Children's Educational Attainment: The Mediating Role of Parenting', British Educational Research Journal.

Articles

Mensah, F. K. and Kiernan, K. E. (2009) 'Parents' mental health and children's cognitive and social development', Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. Published online 13 October 2009. Available online via Springer.

Mensah, F. K. and Kiernan, K. E. (2009) 'Gender differences in educational attainment: Influences of the family environment,' British Educational Research Journal. Published online 7th May 2009: Available online.

Kiernan, K. E. and Mensah, F. K. (2009) 'Poverty, Maternal Depression, Family Status and Children's Cognitive and Behavioural development in Early Childhood: A longitudinal study,' Journal of Social Policy, 38(4), 569-588. Available via Cambridge Journals Online [PDF].

Pickett, K. E., Shaw, R. J., Atkin, K., Kiernan, K. E. and Wilkinson, R. G. (2009) 'Ethnic density effects on maternal and infant health in the Millennium Cohort Study,' Social Science and Medicine, 69(10), 1476-1483.

Kiernan, K. E. (2008) 'Partnership and Parenthood,' in Elliott, J. and Vaitinglinham, R. (eds) Now we are 50: Key Findings from the National Child Development Study, CLS:IOE;ESRC.

Kiernan, K. E. and Huerta, M. C. (2008) 'Economic Deprivation, Maternal Depression, Parenting and Children's Cognitive and Emotional Development in Early Childhood,' British Journal of Sociology, 59(4), 783-806. Available online [PDF].

Kiernan, K. E., Barlow, A. and Merlo, R. (2007) 'Cohabitation Law Reform and its impact on Marriage: Evidence from Australia and Europe International,' Family Law, 63, 71-74.

Kiernan, K. E. and Pickett, K. (2006) 'Marital Status Disparities In Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy, Breastfeeding And Maternal Depression,' Social Science and Medicine, 63, 335-346.

Kiernan, K. E. (2006) 'Non-residential fatherhood and child involvement: evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study,' Journal of Social Policy, 35(4), 651-669.

Kiernan, K. E., Barlow, A. and Merlo, R. (2006) 'Cohabitation Law Reform and its impact on Marriage,' Family Law, 36, 1074-1076.

Sigle-Rushton, W., Hobcraft, J. and Kiernan, K. (2005) 'Parental Disruption and Adult Well-Being: A Cross Cohort Comparison', Demography, 43(3), 427-446.

Kiernan, K. E. (2005) 'Parenthood and Parenting', in Dex, S. and Joshi, H. (eds) Children of the 21st Century: from birth to nine months, Bristol: Policy Press.

Kiernan, K. E. (2004) 'Unmarried Cohabitation and Parenthood in Britain and Europe,' Journal of Law and Policy, 26(1), 33-55.

Kiernan, K. E. (2004) 'Cohabitation and divorce across nations and generations,' in Chase-Lansdale, P.L., Kiernan, K. and Friedman, r. (eds) Human Development across Lives and Generations: The Potential for Change, New York, Cambridge University Press. Also available as CASEpaper, No. 65.

Kiernan, K. E. (2004) 'Unmarried cohabitation and parenthood: here to stay? European perspectives,' in Moynihan, D. P., Smeeding, T. and Rainwater, L. (eds) The Future of the Family, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 66-95.

Kiernan, K. E. (2004) 'Redrawing the boundaries of marriage,' Journal of Marriage and the Family, November, 66, 980-987.

Kiernan, K. E. (2003) 'Changing European families: trends and issues,' in Scott, J., Treas, J. and Richards, M. (eds) Blackwell Companion to Sociology of the Family, Oxford Blackwell.

Kiernan, K. E. and Smith, K. (2003) 'Unmarried Parenthood: New Insights from the Millennium Cohort Study,' Population Trends, Winter 2003, 23-33.

Kiernan, K. E. (2002) 'Cohabitation in Western Europe: trends, issues and implications,' in Booth, A. and Crouter, A. (eds) Just Living Together: Implications of Cohabitation on Families, Children and Social Policy, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 3-31.

Kiernan, K. E. (2002) 'The State of European Unions: An Analysis of Partnership Formation and Dissolution,' in Macura, M. and Beets, G. (eds) Dynamics of fertility and partnership in Europe: insights and lessons from comparative research, UN New York and Geneva, Vol. 1, 57-76.

Kiernan, K. E. (2002) 'Demography and Disadvantage: Chicken and Egg?', in Hills, J., LeGrand, J. and Piachaud, D. (eds) Understanding Social Exclusion, OUP, 84-96.

Kiernan, K. E. (2002) 'Splits hit children's life chances,' THE HOUSE magazine: the Parliamentary Weekly, June 10th, No 995, Vol. 27.

Kiernan, K. E. (2002) 'Focus on Parenthood in Europe,' Bulletin Plus One Plus One, October 2002, 6(4).

Kiernan, K. E. (2001) 'The rise of cohabitation and childbearing outside of marriage in Western Europe,' International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 15(1), 1-21.

Furstenberg, F. F. and Kiernan, K. E. (2001) 'Delayed Parental Divorce: How much do children benefit?', Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63(2), 446-457.

Hobcraft, J. and Kiernan, K. E. (2001) 'Childhood Poverty, Early Motherhood and Adult Social Exclusion,' British Journal of Sociology, 52(3), 495-517.

Kiernan, K. E. (2001) 'Non-marital childbearing: a European Perspective,' in Wu, L. and Wolfe, B. (eds) Out of Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility, Russell Sage Foundation, 77-108.

Kiernan, K. E. (2001) 'Partnership Formation and Dissolution in Western Societies,' in Smelser, N. and Baltes, P. (eds) Encyclopaedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Pergamon Oxford, 11092-11099.

Kiernan, K. E. (2000) 'European Perspectives on Union Formation', in Waite, L., Bachrach, C., Hindin, M., Thomson, E., and Thornton, A., (eds) Ties that Bind: Perspectives on Marriage and Cohabitation. Hawthorne: Aldine de Gruyter.

Kiernan, K. E. and Cherlin, A. (1999) 'Parental divorce and partnership dissolution in adulthood: evidence from a British cohort study,' Population Studies, 53(2), 39-48.

Kiernan, K. E. and Mueller, G. (1999) 'Who divorces?', in McRae, S. (ed) Changing Britain: Families and Households in the 1990s, Oxford University Press.

Kiernan, K. E. (1999) 'Cohabitation in Western Europe,' Population Trends, No. 96, 25-32.

Kiernan, K. E. (1999) 'Childbearing outside marriage in Western Europe,' Population Trends, No. 98, 11-20.

Books

Chase-Lansdale, P. L., Kiernan, K. and Friedman, R. (eds) (2004) The Potential for Change across Lives and Generations: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Cambridge University Press.

Kiernan, K., Land, H. and Lewis, J. (1998) Lone Motherhood in the Twentieth Century: from footnote to front page, Oxford University Press.

Kiernan, K. and Estaugh, V. (1993) Cohabitation Extra-marital Childbearing and Social Policy, Joseph Rowntree Foundation/Family Policy Studies Centre.

Kiernan, K. and Wicks, M. (1990) Family Change and Future Policy, Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust, York.

Last Updated: February 2, 2010 | SPSW

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