The empirical research gets off to a great start

This is a great start but, of course, we'd like more contributions and especially from men. Why don't you take a few minutes now to fill out our completely anonymous questionnaire?

We have started the fieldwork and I visited 'my' first couple last week. How exciting. As part of the research, I am making a floor plan of the couple's home so today I feel like an architect, trying to get a hand-drawn sketch onto a computer screen. How does that work? My skills as a researcher are being extended in ways I never imagined!

Yet again this week I've been reminded about the pertinence of our project. Did you know that family income is to drop for years to come? The Institute for Fiscal Studies has released a report that maps income for different family types up to the year 2015. Families with children will be worst affected by falling incomes, particularly families with children aged under five, families with more than two children, and lone parent families not in paid work.

How much money are we talking about? The median income among families with children is projected to fall between 2010 and 2015 by 4.2%. For a couple with two children this equates to £1,250 less a year by 2015. So while everything else is getting more expensive, income will go down.

Read the full report (PDF document)

This is my third blog; ever. Thanks in advance for your all your comments and suggestions. You can email me to Martina.Klett-Davies@open.ac.uk.