The combination of Mark’s statistical expertise and Colette’s theoretical and empirical knowledge seemed to make a fitting supervisory team!
Under their supervision, I applied for funding from the ESRC to do a PhD exploring what influences fathers’ involvement in childcare and housework using longitudinal data from the UK’s Millennium netherlands rcs data Cohort Study (MCS) – a dataset recommended to me by colleagues at the Equality and Human Rights Commission where I worked for short period as a research assistant. My PhD application was successful. I was awarded ESRC funding with an advanced quantitative stipend to undergo further training in secondary data analysis and herein my academic journey began.
After completing my PhD in 2011, and publishing papers as a Research Associate working with Colette, I won a second grant from the 2016 ESRC’s Secondary Data Analysis Initiative to develop my doctoral research using the MCS.
My project explored the longitudinal trajectories of paternal childcare involvement, and I was the Principal Investigator – supported by Colette Fagan and Mark Elliot as the project Co-Investigators – in partnership with the charity Working Families. The topic was a key interest for Working Families following the introduction of Shared Parental Leave in 2015, which provided a signal, from the Government, that both fathers and mothers had an important role to play in the care of their children.