Dr Laura Valadez-Martinez

Laura joined the Department in 2018 as a Lecturer in Social Policy.  Prior to this, she worked as a researcher at the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) in Loughborough University since 2013 where she concentrated on poverty and living standards.   She has also been an online tutor on childhood policies for the Inter-American Development Bank.  Laura obtained the PhD in Social Policy at Oxford in 2012 where she studied the longitudinal effects of poverty on children.  Before that, she studied the MA in Public Administration at Monterrey Tech in Mexico and the MSc in Public Policy in Latin America at Oxford.

Laura’s research includes poverty measurement, living standards, and early child poverty and well-being.  She interested in the association between poverty measurements and living standards and in exploring conceptualisations of living standards across countries.  Her work includes both quantitative and qualitative projects.

Laura is a Research Partner at the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP), working on the Minimum Income Standard project in Mexico.

Laura teaches at the undergraduate level: Understanding Social Policy; Crime and Social Welfare; Introduction to Research Methods; Dissertation workshops; Inequalities across the Life Course; and Poverty, Pay and Living Standards.

At the postgraduate level, Laura teaches: Children, Young People and Social Policy

• Rafia Arshad: “Wellbeing of Children in the United Kingdom with Pakistani Ethnicity”
• Anna Wehren: “Exploring LGBT+ Perpetrator’s Experiences and Perspectives of Coercive Control”
• Annabel Goddard: "Risk assessments in child protection: Consequences on the perceptions of young people as victims."
• Paulina Jara-Osorio: “Territorial Participation in Childhood: a challenge of design and implementation of Public Policies.”

• Hirsch, D., Padley, M., Stone, J. and Valadez-Martinez, L. (2020). “The Low Income Gap: A New Indicator Based on a Minimum Income Standard”. Social Indicators Research. 149: 67-85. DOI: 10.1007/s11205-019-02241-6 
• Valadez-Martinez, L. (2019). "Decoration Makes a Home. The role of living room furnishings in achieving a dignified standard of living in urban Mexico".  Emotion, Space and Society. Vol. 32.
• Valadez-Martinez, L., Padley, M., Torres Penagos, M. (2017). “A dignified standard of living in Mexico: Results of a pilot study of the Minimum Income Standard approach”. Social Indicators Research. Vol. 40. Isue 2. pp. 695-714.
• Hirsch, D. and Valadez, L. (2017). The Living Wage. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Agenda Publishing.
• Valadez, L. (2016). “Household Income Trajectories, PROGRESA-Oportunidades, and Child Well-being at Pre-school Age in Rural Mexico”. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. Vol. 17 No.4 pp. 516-539.
• Silva, F. and Valadez, L. (2015). “Sophie´s Choice: Attitudes on Welfare State Retrenchment in Bailed-Out Portugal”.  European Societies. Vol. 17. No. 3. pp. 351 – 371. 
• Valadez, L. (2014). “Bridging the Gap:  Conceptual and Empirical Dimensions of Child Wellbeing in Rural Mexico”. Social Indicators Research. Vol. 116. No. 2. pp. 567-591.
• Valadez, L. (2010). “Medium-term Effects of Household Poverty on Child Well-being: a Study in a Sub-sample of Pre-school Children in Rural Mexico”.  Journal of International Development. Vol. 22.  Issue 8. pp. 1141-1161.