King's College London

Professor Heejung Chung, Professor of Work and Employment and Director of the King's Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King’s Business School, has been appointed Fellow of The Academy of Social Sciences.

Her area of expertise includes work-family research within flexible working, remote/hybrid working, work-life balance, work-family conflict, gender inequalities at work and at home, division of labour and well-being outcomes.

The Academy’s Fellowship comprises 1,700 leading social scientists from academia, the public, private and third sectors. The Fellows’ expertise covers the breadth of the social sciences, and their practice and research helps to understand and address some of the major challenges facing communities, society, places and economies. All Academy Fellows are elected for their excellence in their fields and their substantial contributions to social science for public benefit. Selection is through an independent peer review which recognises their excellence and impact. 

74 new Fellows have been elected from 39 UK organisations, comprising 35 Higher Education Institutions, as well as think tanks, non-profits, civil service, and from countries beyond the UK including Australia, Czech Republic, Finland and Ireland. 

Her research focuses on comparative labour market studies, particularly work–family dynamics, gender and other social inequalities, and workers’ work–life balance and wellbeing outcomes. She has over two decades of experience in research and teaching, and has worked with both national government agencies (including those in the UK, Korea, Germany, Italy and Estonia) and international organisations such as the European Commission, OECD, ILO and UN, contributing to policies on work–family and labour markets globally. These include the EU Work–Life Balance Directive and the recent South Korean presidential policy on the four-day working week.

She has published over 100 articles in leading journals including Human Relations and European Sociological Review. Her recent book, The Flexibility Paradox (Policy Press), explores how flexible working can increase gender inequalities and negatively affect workers’ wellbeing when broader structural factors, such as gender norms and workplace cultures, are not addressed.

She has served on the editorial boards of journals including Gender & Society, Work, Employment & Society, and Social Policy & Administration, and on the executive boards of the European Social Policy Analysis Network and the Work and Family Researchers Network.

She has been awarded over £10 million in grant funding as PI and Co-I over the course of her career from grant funders such as ESRC (Future Research Leaders’ award), European Research Council (H2020 initiative), Nuffield, NORFACE and others.

President of the Academy, Will Hutton FAcSS, said:

“I’m delighted to welcome these leading social scientists to the Academy’s Fellowship this spring. Their substantial contributions have furthered knowledge and our understanding in tackling a wide range of societal challenges including working with Indigenous communities in the Arctic to better understand climate risk, memory retrieval processes in legal contexts, social inequalities, economic policy and tackling hate crime. We look forward to working with them to further promote the important role the social sciences play in our daily lives.”