Emeritus Professor Sue Yeandle OBE
BA, PhD, FAcSS
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
Full contact details
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Sue is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, affiliated to CIRCLE, the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and was awarded the OBE for Services to Research into Care and Caring in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours.
Now retired, Sue was previously Director & Principal Investigator of the ESRC Centre for Care (2022-24) and the Sustainable Care: connecting people and systems programme (2017-2021); she was also Founding Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Care and Caring (2016-24). Sue joined the University of Sheffield in 2015 after ten years at the University of Leeds, where CIRCLE was initially established (2006). Her career has also included periods studying, teaching and researching at the Universities of Bradford, Kent, Durham, Swansea, Nottingham Trent and Sheffield Hallam.
- Research interests
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During her career Sue specialised in comparative international analysis of care arrangements and evaluations of carer support initiatives. Her scholarship explored the relationship between work and care; how social and employment policies affect women’s and men’s management of family and caring roles across the life course; and the role of technology in supporting older and disabled people, carers and their networks. She led over 40 externally-funded research projects and published widely on care, caring, gender and work. Major projects and programmes included a study of the everyday lives of older people using technology to support independence at home (AKTIVE, 2011-14); the Carers, Employment & Services study (2005-07, with Carers UK) and an EU-funded research programme, Gender, Employment and Local Labour Markets (2003-06).
- Publications
Sue’s latest book, Carers Organisations and their Impact: the creation of a global movement (2026, Policy Press) is available digitally open access and in hardback. She has published many articles and reports and is also author / editor of the following books:
- Combining Paid Work and Family Care: policies and experiences in international perspective (2013) ed. with T. Kröger
- Policy for a Change: local labour market analysis and gender equality (2009)
- Cash for Care in Developed Welfare States (2007) ed. with C. Ungerson
- Work to Welfare: how men become detached from the labour market (2003) with P. Alcock et al
- Employed Carers and Family-Friendly Employment Policies (2002) with A Wigfield et al
- Line Managers and Family-Friendly Employment: roles and perspectives (2003) with J Phillips et al
- Changing Places: Women’s lives in the city (1996) with C. Booth & J. Darke
- Women of Courage: 100 years of women factory inspectors (1993)
- Youth Unemployment and the Family: voices of disordered times (1991) with P. Allatt
Women’s Working Lives: patterns and strategies (1984)
Sue served on the Advisory Panel for the Independent Sayce Review of Carer’s Allowance overpayments commissioned by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2025-26. Her activities to support fairness and justice for unpaid carers continue.