Digitalisation of work and family lives: Implications for job quality, well-being and inequality

Coordinated by the Institute of Educational Technology, the Future of Work & Professional Development research programme brings together colleagues from across The Open University who are interested in how AI, alongside other technological and societal changes, is shaping the ways we work, learn and develop as professionals and as people – and how these changes, in turn, can inform education.

The programme welcomes Dr Yang Hu, Associate Professor in Sociology at University College London, for a guest lecture exploring how digitalisation is transforming both our working and family lives, and the implications this has for job quality, well-being and inequality.

Abstract

From allocating work tasks to communicating with colleagues, digital technologies are transforming how work is organised, performed and experienced. At the same time, from FaceTime calls to WhatsApp chat groups, digitalisation is reshaping the most intimate aspects of family life.

What are the implications of digitalisation for well-being and inequality in work and family lives?

In this talk, Dr Hu brings together two interlinked studies to address this question. The first examines how multiple dimensions of digitalisation relate to different aspects of job quality and worker well-being across occupations and industries in 39 countries. The second explores the gender division of labour in work- and family-related digital communication, and examines how individual digital literacy and macro-societal digital diffusion shape this division across 29 countries.

The findings demonstrate how digital technologies can both empower their users and create new forms of inequality. The talk develops a multilevel, multidimensional understanding of how digitalisation is transforming our work and family lives.

Biography

Yang Hu, PhD (Cambridge), is Associate Professor in Sociology at the UCL Social Research Institute, University College London, where he is also Academic Head of Learning and Teaching (Postgraduate). He is a member of the 2029 Research Excellence Framework (REF) Sub-Panel for Sociology and Co-Director of the Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN) Early Career Fellowship Programme.

Yang's research examines changes in family and work in global contexts, with a particular focus on the implications of digitalisation and AI for inequalities in family and working lives. He has been named among the ‘Top 2% most-cited scientists’ in the Stanford–Elsevier list since 2022 and has published more than 60 articles in journals including Nature Human Behaviour, Gender & Society, European Sociological Review and Human Relations.

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