"As a qualitative researcher, one of the most exciting aspects of my methods is that I get to be a part of people’s lives for a period of time. It was an immense privilege for me that I was entrusted with this honour by the families I interviewed [for my book, Crunch Time: How Married Couples Confront Unemployment]. It was a pleasure to get to amplify their experiences."
- Dr Aliya Rao reflects on her favourite piece of research as part of our 30th Anniversary celebrations. Read the full close-up with Methodology faculty.

Aliya Hamid Rao is an Associate Professor in Qualitative Research Methodology in the Department of Methodology and a Faculty Associate at the International Inequalities Institute. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016.

Research interests

Aliya’s research agenda is broadly in the areas of work, gender, and family. She draws on qualitative research methods – specifically interviews and observations – to understand how economic risk and employment uncertainty permeate and shape people’s subjectivities, gendered practices, and social relationships in the institutions of work and family. In current and ongoing work, Aliya operationalizes employment uncertainty as unemployment.

Central to this is her book, Crunch Time: How Married Couples Confront Unemployment (University of California Press, 2020), which shows how comparable men and women have starkly different experiences of unemployment. Men’s unemployment is seen as an urgent problem while women’s unemployment – cocooned within a narrative of staying at home – is treated like a non-issue in their families. The book illuminates the interactional mechanisms that sustain gender inequality at a time that is ripe for dismantling these.

For more information, please visit Aliya’s website: www.aliyahamidrao.com