Director

Professor of Gerontology

Tel : +44 (0) 1865 612802)
e-mail : sarah.harper@ageing.ox.ac.uk

Professor Sarah Harper (MA, Cantab; DPhil, Oxon) is Director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing at the University of Oxford.

Research interest in ageing

Sarah Harper is Professor of Gerontology at Oxford University and Director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing, a multi-disciplinary research unit concerned with the implications of population ageing. Her research concerns globalization and global ageing, and the impact of population change, in particular the implications at the global, societal and individual level of the shift in population ages from predominantly young to predominantly older societies. Particular research interests are the impact of this demographic shift on intergenerational relationships and work. She has undertaken research in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific with particular interest in China, Japan and Malaysia, and  is PI with George Leeson on the  Global Ageing Study, a survey of 44,000 men and women aged 40 to 80 in 24 countries.

She is lead investigator on the Ageing Workforce Programme, and has recently completed a study on Extending Late Life Work exploring the transitions to self-employment of men and women in their 50s within the IT industry, and on Changing Capacity with Age: implications for the ageing workforce.  She is lead investigator on the Impact of Migration on Families programme which examines the impact of migrant female care labour on family structures and networks.

Professor Harper also leads The Complex Environmental Population Interactions Project which unites key demographers, economists, anthropologists, philosophers and environmentalists to address through research, modeling and scenarios, the range of complex interactions between environmental and demographic change over the first half of the 21st century.

Following her early post-doctoral research in China,  Sarah  has continued her interest on ageing in  Asia.  She has worked in Japan on health and social care programmes, and in China on research into the impact of population ageing on the health and well being of older people living in the  community.  She has also undertaken research on the Chinese community in Chicago.

Professor Harper trained as an ethnographer and has extensive experience in qualitative methodologies. Throughout her research career she has collaborated with quantitative researchers, enabling her to develop extensive quantitative and qualitative research methods

Sarah originally trained with the BBC as a News and Current Affairs reporter and worked as a producer. Before returning to Oxford she was a professor in Public Policy at the University of Chicago and remains a Research Associate at the Center of Demography and Economics.

Recent professional commitments include

• Visiting Chair in Old Age Security and Retirement, University of Malaya
• Global Advisor on Ageing Issues to HSBC
• Member of Scientific Programme Committee of IFA 2006 (Copenhagen) and 2008 (Montreal)
• Member of Northern Ireland Changing Ageing Partnership
• Co-ordinator IARU - International Alliance of Research Universities - Oxford Group on Ageing
• Governor, Pensions Policy Institute
• Member, Wellcome Trust Health Consequences of Population Change Panel
• Member, Help the Aged’s Research Strategy Committee and Help the Aged’s Social Policy Committee
• Trustee, Third Age Employment Network
• International Assessor, Swedish National Academy, Institute of Ageing Initiative, Sweden
• English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) Advisory Board
• International Collaborator, Australian Research Council/NHMRC Research Network in Ageing Well

Recent books include

• Ageing in Asia. Routledge, London. Edited with Roger Goodman, 2008
• Ageing Societies: Myths, Challenges and Opportunities, Hodder Arnold, London, 2006.
• Families in Ageing Societies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004.