Erika is interested in various aspects of work and care. As part of the research group that focuses on the changing social care workforce in the UK, she is involved in projects exploring how national policy reforms affect the care workforce and the digital skills of care workers.
Prior to joining the Centre for Care, Erika conducted research on topics ranging from the impact of work-care reconciliation policies on women’s labour force participation to digital skills. Her main research interest is focused on how gender inequalities are created and recreated at the intersection of work and care and how women’s working lives are shaped by different institutions, such as the labour market, work organisations and the family.
Erika has an MA and PhD in Gender Studies from the Central European University (Vienna). She has spent most of her post-doctoral career conducting applied research that is relevant to academia and public policy, working at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the University of Warwick and at the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities (CIRCLE) at the University of Leeds. Prior to post-graduate studies, Erika worked for a women’s rights organisation in Hungary.
Erika supervises post-graduate students at the LSHTM and has supervised PhD and MBA students at the University of Warwick. She is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy/Advance HE.
Research
She has been involved in many research projects, investigating different aspects of work and employment (for example, skills, graduate careers, and the impact of Covid-19 on the education and childcare workforce) and gender equality at the intersection of work and care in the UK and in a comparative perspective. She presented her research on workforce digital skills to the All- Party Parliamentary Group on Digital Skills (2022)
Research interests
- Social care workforce
- Gender and work
- Work-care reconciliation
- Skills
- Qualitative methods
Selected publications
- Whitfield, G., Kispeter, E., Hamblin, K., and Burns, D. (2025). How the care workforce navigates the digital ‘skills gap’: problems and opportunities from policy to practice. Front. Sociol. 10, 1552672. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1552672
- Atfield, G., Baldauf, B and Kispeter, E. (2021) Mitigating the impacts of COVID-19 Rapid evidence review; Education, childcare and social work and related social care workforce. Coventry: Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick.
- Purcell, K, Elias, P., Atfield, G. and Kispeter, E. (2021) What a difference a year makes: the impact of Covid 19 on graduate careers. Coventry: Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick.
- Bailey, D., Driffield, N. & Kispeter, E. (2019) Brexit, foreign investment and employment: some implications for industrial policy? Contemporary Social Science, 14, 2, pp. 174-188.
- Alden, S., Kispeter, E., Wigfield, A. & Karania, V. (2019) Changing the narrative: the role of frontline worker attitudes and beliefs in shaping dementia friendly services in England, Disability & Society, 34, 5, pp. 775-796.
- Kispeter, E. (2019) The economic crisis and women’s part-time work in Hungary, in English, B. Frederickson, M. E. and Sanmiguel-Valderrama, O. (eds.) Global Women’s Work: Perspectives on Gender and Work in the Global Economy, Abingdon, Routledge, pp. 319-335.
- Kispeter, E. (2019) What digital skills do adults need to succeed in the workplace now and in the next 10 years?, London, DCMS.
- Barnes, S-A., Kispeter, E., Eikhof, D. & Parry, R. (2018). Mapping the Museum Digital Skills Ecosystem Phase One Report. Leicester, University of Leicester.
- Kispeter, E. & Wright, S. (2017) Promoting positive mental health at work by creating a sense of shared responsibility, London, Acas.
- Adamson, M. & Kispeter, E. (2016) ‘Gender and professional work in Hungary and the USSR: similarities, differences and continuities’, in Baker, C. (ed.) Gender in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe and the USSR, London, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 214-227.
- Fodor, E. & Kispeter, E. (2014) ‘Making the ‘reserve army’ invisible: Lengthy parental leave and women’s economic marginalisation in Hungary’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 21, 4, pp. 382-398.