Dr Brigid van Wanrooy

Position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Phone: 02 9351 5714
Email: b.vanwanrooy@econ.usyd.edu.au

Qualifications: B.Soc.Sci (Hons) UNSW, PhD ANU

Brigid has a first class honours degree in Social Research Methods and Social Policy from the University of New South Wales and a doctorate from the Australian National University. The topic of her doctoral thesis is Australian working time preferences.

Brigid is a social researcher who has worked for the Commonwealth Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and in a private sector social research consulting firm. She has had experience in policy and program evaluation and a variety of qualitative and quantitative research projects.

Brigid holds an ARC postdoctoral fellowship and is the lead researcher for the Australia at Work study. This project is tracking 8,341 workers over five years to examine changes in working life. The study explores the labour contract, forms of employment, occupational characteristics, working hours, earnings, living standards, attitudes at work and life course transitions.

Areas of expertise:

• Working hours and preferences
• Qualitative and quantitative methods
• Statistical (including longitudinal) analysis

Publications:

• van Wanrooy, B. Jakubauskas, M., Buchanan, J., Wilson, S. and Scalmer, S. (2008) Workings Lives: Statistics and Stories, Workplace Research Centre, Sydney.
• van Wanrooy, B., Scalmer, S. and Wilson, S. (2008) “What do workers want from industrial relations? Insights from Australia at Work” in Riley, J. and Sheldon, P. (eds) Remaking Australian Industrial Relations, CCH, Sydney.
• van Wanrooy, B., Oxenbridge, S., Buchanan, J. and Jakubauskas, M. (2007) Australia at Work: The Benchmark Report, Workplace Research Centre, Sydney.
• van Wanrooy, B. (2007) “The quiet before the storm? Attitudes towards the new industrial relations system” in Denemark, D., Meagher, G., Wilson, S., Western, M. and Phillips, T. Australian Social Attitudes: The Second Report, UNSW Press, Sydney.
• van Wanrooy, B. (2007) “A desire for 9 to 5: Australians’ preference for a standard working week”, Labour & Industry. Vol. 17, No. 3, pp.71–95.
• van Wanrooy, B. & Wilson, S. (2006) “Convincing the toilers?: Dilemmas of long working hours in Australia”, Work Employment and Society. Vol. 20, No. 2, pp.349–368.
• van Wanrooy, B. (2005) “Adapting to the lifecourse? Evaluating men and women’s working time preferences”, Australian Journal of Labour Economics. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp.145–162.
• Pocock, B., van Wanrooy, B., Strazzari, S. and Bridge, K. (2001) Fifty Families: What Unreasonable Hours do to Australians, their families and their communities. Published by the ACTU.
• Buchanan, J. and van Wanrooy, B. (2001) What About the Bosses? Published by the ACTU as part of the Reasonable Hours Test Case Submission to the AIRC.