Economics of health, social policy and wellbeing

Now more than ever, economics is grappling with the meanings of progress and what the economy and policy are aiming for. Widening the concept of well-being to uncover its multiple dimensions remain at the centre of much research on welfare economics, social policy and health economics. We welcome proposals from all disciplines interested in researching the following issues:

• Economics of health: health policies, health systems, impact of economic policies on health outcomes, the interactions between health and socio-economic inequalities, health and international development
• Economics of social policy: social security policy and impacts on poverty and inequality, gender impacts of fiscal policy, investment in childcare and adult social care, quality of care employment, minimum income standards, taxation, microsimulation of tax and benefit policies, division of paid and unpaid work
• Economics of well-being: capabilities approach and measurement, multidimensional concepts of well-being, time-use analysis and working time reduction, cultural approaches to well-being, interaction between care work and well-being, autonomy and care needs, politics of well-being and happiness, measures of economic progress, collective well-being and public goods.

Entry requirements

Minimum 2:1 undergraduate degree (or equivalent). If you are not a UK citizen, you may need to prove your knowledge of English.

Potential supervisors

• Dr Julia Chukwuma – Lecturer in Economics
• Dr Jerome De Henau – Senior Lecturer in Economics
• Dr Kevin Dean – Senior Lecturer in Economics
• Dr Lorena Lombardozzi – Lecturer in Economics
• Dr Rajiv Prabhakar, – Senior Lecturer in Personal Finance
• Dr Cristina Santos – Senior Lecturer in Economics

Fees and funding

Some of our research students are funded via The Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership; others are self-funded.

For detailed information about fees and funding, visit Fees and studentships.

To see current funded studentship vacancies across all research areas, see Current studentships.

Links

• Economics at The Open University
• Innovation, Knowledge and Development Research Centre
• Innogen Institute
• Research at The Open University