Sarah Harper

Professor of Gerontology, Director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing, University of Oxford, UK

Professor Sarah Harper is Director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing, and Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford.

She is lead investigator on the Ageing Workforce Programme, and has recently completed a study on Extending Late Life Work exploring the transitions to self-employment of men and women in their 50s within the IT industry. She is lead investigator on the Impact of Migration on Families programme which examines the impact of migrant female care labour on family structures and networks. She is lead investigator on the Family and Intergerational Relationships Programme. In the area of multi-generational families she has completed a Nuffield funded study into grandparents and lone-mothers and a collaborative six-country study on Grandparenthood across Western Europe, funded by the EU.

Professor Harper trained as an ethnographer and has extensive experience in qualitative methodologies. Throughout her research career she has collaborated with quantitative researchers, enabling her to develop extensive quantitative and qualitative research methods. Before returning to Oxford she was a professor in Public Policy at the University of Chicago and remains a Research Associate at the Center of Demography and Economics.