Welcome to Ann Oakley's website

Here you can find out more about Ann Oakley's work and life, and get details of her books and other publications. There are also links to videos and interviews in which she talks about her work.

Ann Oakley is a writer and a sociologist. She has written both novels and many non-fiction books. Most of her life has been spent working in university research. She is best known for her work on sex and gender, housework, childbirth and social science. Her more recent interests have focused on evidence-based public policy and methodologies of research and evaluation, on the sociology of the body and on biography and autobiography as forms of life-writing.

She is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the UCL Socal Research Institute, and until January 2005 was Director of the Social Science Research Unit (SSRU) at the Institute of Education, where she also headed the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre). She holds an honorary appointment as a Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. In 2011 the British Sociological Association gave her one of their first Lifetime achievement Awards for her extraordinary contribution to the history of the development of sociology in Britain. She now works on research part-time, and spends the rest of it writing, swimming and spending time with her family and friends.