Dr Emma Gorman

Dr. Emma Gorman is a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Employment Research (CER) within the School of Organisations, Economy and Society at the University of Westminster.

Her work sits at the intersection of applied economics, statistical methods and policy evaluation, with a particular focus on how the economic and social conditions in which people live shape their outcomes. She works primarily with large-scale survey and administrative datasets.

Emma’s current research agenda spans three connected themes: (1) economics of education and labour markets, (2) social mobility across places and generations, and (3) population health – inequalities and measurement. Emma is currently PI on an ESRC-funded grant which aims to set out new facts about social mobility in Britain, using 2021 Census data via the ONS Longitudinal Study (with Franz Buscha, Patrick Sturgis and Min Zhang).

She has published widely on these topics in journals such as Labour Economics, Economics of Education Review, Oxford Bulletin of Economics & Statistics, American Journal of Epidemiology and the British Journal of Sociology.

Alongside academic outputs, Emma has experience delivering research and evaluation for policy organisations, such as DWP, DfE, the Low Pay Commission and the Social Mobility Commission.

Emma is co-module leader and lecturer for New Methods in Data Analysis for Business at the University of Westminster.  Her teaching draws on practical experience of empirical research design, causal inference, and working with administrative data to equip students with skills that translate directly to research and policy settings. She has previously taught on several undergraduate modules as a Teaching Assistant, at Lancaster University Management School and Victoria University of Wellington (Principles of Economics - Micro and Macro, Statistics for Business, Economics for Policy).

Emma contributes to research leadership and service through securing and managing external funding, peer review for academic publications and funding bodies, and supervising and mentoring junior colleagues. Prior to joining the University of Westminster, she held posts at the New Zealand Treasury, the University of Glasgow, and Lancaster University, where she completed her PhD in Economics. Emma is affiliated with the IZA, Institute of Labor Economics network and the Global Labor Organization (GLO).

Recent grant-funded research

• Children of the 1990s - extending understanding of social mobility in England and Wales (PI, with Franz Buscha, Patrick Sturgis & Min Zhang, funder: ESRC)
• Analysis of post-16 education pathways that entrench social segregation (co-I, with Peter Urwin and Dave Thompson, funder: Nuffield Foundation)

For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.