Articles about 'sociology'

A major research project sees sociologists situated at emerging hot spots of reproductive change, investigating the new ‘haves and have-nots’ in our fertility futures.       

A unique, free new game – “part Sims, part Tamagotchi” – lets players inhabit a stem cell researcher as they rise through the ranks: growing cells, scientific collaborations, and reputation.  

With our Postgraduate Open Day fast-approaching (3 November), we introduce five PhD students who are already making waves at Cambridge.

Analysis of EU survey data suggests millions in UK may suffer anxiety as a result of unpredictable management-imposed flexible working hours. Research in supermarkets finds workers ‘begging’ for extra hours, and feeling they are being punished with last minute shift changes.

Urgent requirement for channels of timely and reliable information to be developed targeting UK-born people living on the continent, say researchers – before life-changing decisions get made rashly in a milieu of rumour and speculation.

What is our place in the natural world – and how do we feel about the scientific advances that are changing the way we live? In her book Making a Good Life, Dr Katharine Dow explores the ethics of assisted reproductive technology in conversations with members of a small Scottish community dedicated to protecting the environment.

An analysis of a new drug’s journey to market, published today in the BMJ, shines a light on financial practices that see some major pharmaceutical companies relying on a cycle of acquisitions, profits from high prices, and shareholder-driven manoeuvres that threatens access to medicines for current and future patients.

Researchers describe IMF as having an “escalating commitment to hypocrisy”, as study reveals that strict lending conditions have returned to pre-crisis levels, while ‘pro-poor’ targets frequently go unmet.

Researcher Alex Wood calls on new DWP Minister Stephen Crabb to acknowledge distinction between flexible scheduling controlled by managers to maximise profit, damaging lives of the low-paid in the process, and high-end professionals who set their own schedules – an issue he says was publicly fudged by Ian Duncan-Smith to justify zero-hour contracts.

Data from location-based social networks may be able to predict when a neighbourhood will go through the process of gentrification, by identifying areas with high social diversity and high deprivation.