Dr Myra Hamilton

Dr Myra Hamilton (BA (Hons); PhD, Sydney) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Social Policy Research Centre. She is a sociologist and social policy researcher whose focus is on work and care across the generations. Her program of research brings together research on patterns of, barriers to, and experience of work, with research on patterns of and experiences of care, and how these interact in complex ways across the generations and at different stages of the lifecourse. 

Her research projects have covered retirement incomes policy, welfare reform, the policy needs of parents and unpaid carers and the dynamics of work and care over the lifecourse, and the way in which young people and baby boomers prepare for the future. She has a PhD in sociology, a comparative study of Australia and Britain looking at the way in which reform of income support and retirement incomes systems are framed by ideas about contractual reciprocity.

Myra has spent most of the last eight years working at the Social Policy Research Centre, where she combines academic research with applied policy research for government and non-government organisations, including a number of evaluations of policies and programs. She makes regular contributions to public and media debate on issues such as baby boomers, grandparenting, work and retirement decisions, balancing work and care, and the wellbeing of children and young people. She is an Associate Editor of the Australian Journal of Social Issues and a member of the Work and Family Policy Roundtable.

Her work is internationally recognised and she has spent significant periods living and working in the United Kingdom, based at the Centre for Research on Ageing and Gender at the University of Surrey (2007), as a Lecturer at the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol (2010-2011), and at the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships at the University of Edinburgh (2010).

She is currently the holder of two Australian Research Council Grants: one on how disadvantaged young people access the resources they need; and one on how families manage care, treatment and stigma when a family member is living with a blood borne virus.

Research Areas

Retirement incomes policy
Ageing and the lifecourse
Welfare reform

Balancing work and care
Informal carers
Policies concerning children and young people
Generational issues
Policy, service and program evaluation
Social theory ie including risk theory, social contract theory, citizenship theory

Methodological expertise

Comparative policy analysis
Qualitative research

Current Grants

Chief Investigator, ARC Discovery Grant, Serodiscordance in Family Life, (2016-2019) (other CIs include Associate Professor Christy Newman, Dr Asha Persson, Associate Professor kylie valentine, Dr Joanne Bryant, and Jack Wallace)

Chief Investigator, ARC Linkage Grant, Young People and Adversity: Stories of Resourcing and Resourcefulness (2016-2019) (other CIs include Dr Jen Skattebol, Associate Professor kylie valentine and Professor Deborah Brennan)

Chief Investigator, Competitive Grant for Financial Literacy Australia, An Australian Framework for Financial Wellbeing,undertaken by Social Policy Research Centre in partnership with Centre for Social Impact, UNSW, Sydney (2016-2017) (other CIs include Professor Kristy Muir, Dr Jack Noone)