Professor Yang Hu
Professor of Global SociologyResearch Interests
Follow Yang on ResearchGate, Personal Website, and Mastodon.
Yang Hu's research focuses on changing work, family, intimate and gender relations, as well as their intersection with population mobility, in a global context. His research contributes to advancing work-family, gender and social equality, and understanding of how macro socio-economic, political and institutional developments and cultural changes (re)configure everyday work, family and intimate lives. His research has been funded by the UKRI/ESRC, SSHRC, British Academy, HEFCE, and the Nuffield Foundation.
Yang's areas of research interest include:
1. (Changing) gender and work-family dynamics in regional and global contexts
The first strand of Yang’s research focuses on work-family, intimate, and gender relations over the life course in regional (Asia, MENA countries, South America, Canada, the USA, and the UK) and particularly in cross-national contexts. In his recent collaborative project funded by the URKI, Yang examines the role played by Artificial Intelligence in (re)producing intersecting gender and ethnic inequalities in the labour market in the UK and Canada. At Lancaster, Yang co-founded and co-convenes (with J. Fledderjohann) the LAARG (Lancaster Asia Area Research Group).
2. Mobilities and family relations in a global context
The second strand of Yang’s research focuses on population mobilities and family relations in a global context. For example, Yang's first book examined how people negotiate gendered family lives in Chinese-British inter-ethnic marriages. His recent work also examines the commercialisation of border regimes and re-theorises transnationalism in a (post-)COVID world.
3. COVID-19 and social inequalities
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yang has been active in researching social inequalities emerging from and exacerbated by the pandemic.
Yang is an editorial board member of Sociology (2020–), Journal of Marriage and Family (2020–), and Sociology Compass (2020–2022).
Yang's research has received broad global media coverage by outlets such as The Time Magazine, Newsweek, United Press, Global Times, German National Radio (see Yang's website for a full list).
At Lancaster, Yang is also affiliated with:
Additional Information
Yang's Guidance and Feedback Hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00-12:00 during term times, both in person and online. If you'd like to meet on Teams, advance booking is required, using this link https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/appointments/yanghu OR simply email me at yang.hu@lancaster.ac.uk.
For students: Before emailing me, please read my email policies. If you would like to request a reference letter for your postgraduate/job application, please read this guideline before you contact me.
Qualifications
BA (Zhejiang University); MPhil & PhD (Cambridge, as Gates Scholar)
Current Teaching
- GWS.101 Femininity and masculinity in East Asia and in a transnational context (not running due to sabbatical 2022-23)
- SOCL.101 Globalisation trilogy: Global imaginaries, global mobilities, and global inequalities
- SWK.116 Family changes and family diversity (not running due to sabbatical 2022-23)
- GCR.247 Global Classrooms
- SOCL.248 Global families and intimacy
PhD Supervision Interests
Yang would be happy to work with students in (the intersection of) the following areas: * Sociology of families and intimate relationships * Work-family and employment relations * Globalisation, global mobilities, transnationalism * Intersectional social inequalities (e.g. gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, migrant status) I welcome proposals using quantitative (including computational), qualitative and/or mixed-methods.
DSI : BIAS: Responsible AI for Labour Market Equality
01/02/2020 → 31/01/2023
Research
DSI: SafePod
26/08/2019 → 30/09/2021
Research
Health inequalities in China, India, and Nepal
Other
Philip Abrams Memorial Prize (Nominee)
Other distinction
The Sociological Review Foundation 2018 Conference Award
Prize (including medals and awards)
The Sociological Review Seminar Series
Prize (including medals and awards)
Work Family Researchers Network Early Career Fellow
Fellowship awarded competitively
FASS Staff Award for Early Career Researcher of the Year
Prize (including medals and awards)
FASS Staff Award for Outstanding Team Contribution (Sociology Internationalisation Team)
Prize (including medals and awards)
- CeMoRe - Centre for Mobilities Research
- Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities
- Centre for Child and Family Justice Research
- Centre for Gender Studies
- DSI - Society
- Migrancy Research Group