About
Dr Afshin Zilanawala is an Associate Professor of Demography. As a family and social demographer, her research investigates the connection between family contexts and children's health and development. A particular focus of her research investigates the proximate family setting in which children live and examining factors, such as parental employment, mental health, and economic hardship, which are implicated in the production of inequalities in children's development. Her work advances our knowledge of the extent of racial/ethnic disparities in different measures of child wellbeing. Additionally, her research considers the role of country policy context on families' social and economic resources by investigating children's wellbeing comparatively between the US and UK.
Her current research examines the impact of parental nonstandard work schedules (i.e., working evenings, nights, and weekends) on children's health and development and parent's wellbeing in the UK, work that was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Additionally, she is investigating the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on couples’ relationship quality, household structure, and loneliness.
Dr Zilanawala uses US and UK birth cohorts for her research, which has been published in leading journals such as Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Family Issues, and Social, Science & Medicine.