A research team at King's Business School will lead a £2.7m European Commission-funded project investigating why gender inequality in work and care persists across Europe.
Working with co-investigators in seven countries, the team will examine how parental leave, flexible working and childcare shape careers and the sharing of care, despite decades of policy reform.
REWORC , which stands for Reimagining Work and Care: Gender Equality, Couple Dynamics, and Policy Innovation in Europe, is funded through Horizon Europe, the EU's key programme for research and innovation. It is due to run from February 2027 to January 2031.
At its centre is how couples make decisions about paid work and care, and how those choices are shaped by newly introduced workplace practices and national policies. A particular focus will be how changing expectations of men's roles, shaped by these policies, influence equality at work and at home.
The researchers will assess how parental leave, flexible and remote working, and childcare provision affect careers, the division of care within households, children's outcomes and family wellbeing. Drawing on cross-national data from 20 to 30 countries, they will examine how these effects differ across household types and socio-economic groups. The project will also be exploring what families want with regards to policy options and how families perceive their ideal division of care and paid work.
Professor Heejung Chung, Professor of Work and Employment and Director of King's Global Institute for Women's Leadership, is the principal investigator. The team also includes research fellows Dr Shiyu Yuan and Dr Caitlin Schmid.
We are at a pivotal point for how families work and care. As remote working and leave for fathers and second parents are introduced and expanded across Europe, couples face new choices about who does the paid work and who does the caring. By looking at the household as a whole, REWORC will uncover the new patterns of family life that are emerging and what they mean for wellbeing and stability. Our aim is to bring fresh thinking on gender roles and the division of labour, and to give families, employers and policymakers the evidence they need to make choices that help families, companies and societies thrive.
Professor Heejung Chung, Director of King's Global Institute for Women's Leadership[
This award reflects King's commitment to the service of society through academic excellence. How we organise work and care has consequences for individual careers, family wellbeing and the wider economy. The strength of our social science research and value of our European partnerships brings together expertise across disciplines and countries. REWORC will help employers and policymakers make better-informed decisions about how to support people at work and at home.
Professor Sir Bashir M. Al-Hashimi CBE FRS FREng, Senior Vice President (Research & Special Initiatives), King's College London
REWORC brings together researchers from Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, France and the UK, with expertise spanning epidemiology, economics, management, sociology and other disciplines.
The project will use administrative and survey data, experiments and case studies to examine how policies, organisations and gender norms interact. It will also draw on simulations and stakeholder involvement to identify more inclusive policy solutions.
