Brendan J Burchell is a professor at the Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science at the University of Cambridge and a professorial fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was a director of graduate education in sociology 2008–2012 and head of the department of sociology from October 2012 to October 2014.Department of Sociology, Cambridge University Burchell is the current director of studies in politics and sociology for Magdalene College and was the director of the Cambridge Undergraduate Quantitative Methods Centre (CUQM) between 2014 and 2018.
Burchell read his undergraduate degree in psychology at Birmingham University from 1977 to 1980, and went on to gain a PhD in social psychology from Warwick University researching person perception under laboratory conditions. He then took a one-year post at The City University teaching social psychology, statistics and computing. His career took a change of direction when, in 1985, he was appointed to the Department of Applied Economics at Cambridge as a research officer to assist in a project entitled the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative, working collaboratively with economists, social psychologists and sociologists on a variety of aspects of labour markets and their effects on individuals. In 1988 Dr Burchell transferred from the Department of Applied Economics to take a Lectureship in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, specialising in the teaching of data analysis, psychological aspects of unemployment, work intensification, job insecurity as well as undergraduate project work.
In 2011 Burchell was awarded the Pilkington Prize, a University of Cambridge award for excellence in teaching.
Burchell's recent research projects have included the effects of labour market experiences on psychological well-being, work intensification and job insecurity; predictors and correlates of the transition into self-employment; managers' and employees' different perspectives on jobs, part-time work and gender differences in working conditions and careers, restless leg syndrome and financial phobia. He has held numerous research grants published widely in the academic literature; his work has been featured widely in newspapers and social media. In 2019 his team's work on the Employment Dosage Project received widespread media coverage in new sites such as The Guardian, The Independent, ITV, the Telegraph, the Metro, and Vice. He has supervised 25 PhD students.
Most recently, Professor Burchell lead a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge in monitoring a trial of the 4 day working week for 61 UK based companies. To date, it is the world's largest trial of the 4 day working week.
Bibliography
Selected publications Published reports
Burchell, B.J. and Wilkinson, F.S. (1993) 'Sunday Trading and Premium Payments for Shop Workers in Small Shops' : Relationship Foundation.
Burchell, B.J. and Ely, M. (1997) 'Income, Wealth and Opportunity in Cambridge, 1997: A background document'. Cambridge: Cambridge City Council.
Burchell, B.J., Deakin, D. and Honey, S. (1999) 'The Employment Status of Individuals in Non-Standard Employment' : Department of Trade and Industry EMAR publications No 6.
Wichert, I.C., Nolan, J.P. and Burchell, B.J. (2000) 'Workers on the Edge: Job Insecurity, Psychological wellbeing and Family Life'. Washington DC: Economic Policy Institute. Fagan, C. and Burchell, B.J. (2002) Gender, Jobs and Working Conditions in the European Union. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. Burchell, B.J. (2003) Identifying, describing and understanding Financial Aversion: Financial phobes. Report for Egg. Elliott, John Sue Long, Barbara Walker, David Bridges with John Brierley Malcolm Brynin, Brendan Burchell, Sara Connolly, Mark Deas, Muriel Egerton, Kieth Hawkins, Geraldine Healy, Geoffrey Hinchliffe, Alison Lys, Ron Martin, Shaun Tyson 2004. The dynamics of the graduate labour market in the East of England A report by the Graduate Labour Market Policy Research Forum, EEDA/University of East Anglia.
Burchell, B.J. and Hughes, A. (2006), "The stigma of failure: An international comparison of failure tolerance and second chancing", Centre for Business Research, Working paper 334.
Burchell, B.J. (2007), "The social, Psychological and Economic Costs of Job Insecurity", Ohara Institute for Social Research, Hosei University, Working Paper 25 (Language: Japanese). Burchell, B., Fagan, C., O’Brien, C., and Smith, M, (2007), "Working Conditions in the European Union: The Gender Perspective", European Foundation.
Pdf.
Burchell, B.J., Cartron, D., Csizmadia, P., Delcampe, S., Gollac, M., Illéssy, M., Lorenz, E., Makó, C., O’Brien, C. & Valeyre, A. (2009) ‘Working conditions in the European Union: Working time and work intensity’, European Foundation, October. Pdf.
Shapiro, G. K., & Burchell, B. J. (2012). Measuring financial anxiety. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 5(2), 92–103. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027647 Racko, G., & Burchell, B. (2013). The role of technical progress, professionalization and Christian religion in occupational gender segregation: a cross-national analysis. Work, Employment and Society, 27(4), 581–599 https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2013.845423 Piasna, A., Smith, M., Rose, J., Rubery, J., Burchell, B., & Rafferty, A. (2013). Participatory HRM practices and job quality of vulnerable workers. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(22), 4094–4115 https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2013.845423 Burchell, B., & Tumawu, K. D. A. (2014). Employee motivation and work ethic in the state and private sector in Ghana: a survey of teaching and banking professions. Online Journal of African Affairs, 3(4), 55–62 Burchell, B., Sehnbruch, K., Piasna, A., & Agloni, N. (2014). The quality of employment and decent work: definitions, methodologies, and ongoing debates. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 38(2), 459–477 https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bet067 Sehnbruch, K., Burchell, B., Agloni, N., & Piasna, A. (2015). Human development and decent work: why some concepts succeed and others fail to make an impact. Development and Change, 46(2), 197–224 https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12149 O’Reilly, J., Smith, M., Deakin, S., & Burchell, B. (2015). Equal Pay as a Moving Target: International perspectives on forty-years of addressing the gender pay gap. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 39(2), 299–317 https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bev010 Didriksen, M., Hansen, T., Rigas, A., Allen, R., Burchell, B., Thørner, L., ... Ullum, H. (2017). Comorbidities to restless legs syndrome: results from the Danish Blood Donor Study. Sleep Medicine, 40(1)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2017.11.227 Didriksen, M., Rigas, A. S., Allen, R. P., Burchell, B. J., Di Angelantonio, E., Nielsen, M. H., ... Ullum, H. (2017). Prevalence of restless legs syndrome and associated factors in an otherwise healthy population: results from the Danish Blood Donor Study. Sleep Medicine, 36, 55–61.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2017.04.014 Racko, G., Strauss, K., & Burchell, B. (2017). Economics education and value change: the role of program-normative homogeneity and peer influence. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 16(3), 373–392 https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2014.0280 Annor, F., & Burchell, B. (2018). A cross-national comparative study of work demands/support, work-to-family conflict and job outcomes: Ghana versus the United Kingdom. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 18(1), 53–72 https://doi.org/10.1177/1470595817746195 Didriksen, M., Allen, R. P., Burchell, B. J., Thørner, L. W., Rigas, A. S., Di Angelantonio, E., ... Ullum, H. (2018). Restless legs syndrome is associated with major comorbidities in a population of Danish blood donors. Sleep Medicine, 45, 124–131 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2018.02.007 Burchell, B. J., & Coutts, A. P. (2019). The Experience of Self-Employment Among Young People: An Exploratory Analysis of 28 Low- to Middle-Income Countries. American Behavioral Scientist, 63 (2), 147-165 https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764218794240 Kaptoge, S, De Angelantonio, E, Moore, C. ... Burchell, B et al. (2019) Longer-term efficiency and safety of increasing the frequency of whole blood donation (INTERVAL): extension study of a randomised trial of 20 757 blood donors. The Lancet, Haematology 6 (10) 2 August 510-520 https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-3026(19)30106-1 Kamerade, D., Wang, S., Burchell, B., Balderson, S.U., & Coutts, A. (2019) A shorter working week for everyone: How much paid work is needed for mental health and well-being? Social Science and Medicine, 24 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.06.006 Piasna, A., B Burchell, B. & Sehnbruch, K. (2019) Job quality in European employment policy: one step forward, two steps back? Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research. Vol 2, 165-180 https://doi.org/10.1177/1024258919832213 Balderson, S.U., Burchell, B., Kamerade, D., Wang, S. & Coutts, A. (2020) An exploration of the multiple motivations for spending less time at work. Time and Society https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X20953945 Wang, S., Coutts, A., Burchell, B., Kamerade, D. &. Balderson, S.U., (2020) (2020) Can Active Labour Market Programmes Emulate the Mental Health Benefits of Regular Paid employment? Longitudinal Evidence from the United Kingdom. Work, Employment and Society https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0950017020946664 Burchell, B., Reuschke, D., & Zhang, M. (2020). Spatial and temporal segmenting of urban workplaces: The gendering of multi-locational working. Urban Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098020903248 Brewin, C., Miller, J., Soffia, M., Peart, A., & Burchell, B. (2020). Posttraumatic stress disorder and complex posttraumatic stress disorder in UK police officers. Psychological Medicine, 1–9. doi:10.1017/S0033291720003025
Other journal articles (not peer refereed)
Burchell, B.J. (1995). 'Exploratory Data Analysis'. Pharmacy Practice Research Resource Centre Bulletin 4: 9–12. Burchell, B.J., Felstead, A. and Green, F. (1998). 'Insecurity at Work'. New Economy 5: 180–184. Burchell, B.J. (2002). 'Les Conséquences Psychologiques et Familiales de l'Insécurité Professionnelle.'. Les Politiques Sociales 61: 100–115 Burchell, B.J. (2004) Identifying, describing and understanding Financial Aversion: Financial phobes. Argent. Burchell, B.J. (2005) The welfare costs of job insecurity: psychological wellbeing and family life. Trends in social cohesion special issue: Reconciling labour flexibility with social cohesion – facing the challenge 15, 71–108. Burchell, B.J. (2005) Les Couts sociaux de la precarite de l’emploi: bien-etre psychologique et la vie familiale. Tendances de la cohesion sociale: Concilier flexibilite du travail et cohesion sociale – Un defi a relever 15, 75–116. Burchell, B.J. (2006) Anglais, encore un effort! L’intensite du travail au Royaume-Uni. Actes de la research en sciences sociales 163 (June) 91–100. Brosnan, C & Burchell, B.J. (2006) Diagnosing restless legs syndrome: when words get in the way. Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry 10(3) 33–35. Burchell, B. (2012). Book review: David Guest, Kerstin Isaksson and Hans de Witte (eds), Employment Contracts, Psychological Contracts and Employee Well-being. Work, Employment & Society, 26(3), 545–546 Burchell, B., & Wood, A. (2014, September). Beyond zero-hours: reducing the misery of insecure hours. Safety Management Wood, A., & Burchell, B. (2015, April). What Dave, Vince and Ed don’t tell you about zero-hours contracts. Open Democracy Wood, A., & Burchell, B. (2015, September). Zero hours employment: a new temporality of capitalism? Reviews & Critical Commentary (CritCom) Kamerade, D., Balderson, S.U., Burchell, B., Wang, S., & Coutts, A. (2020) Shorter working week and workers’ well-being and Mental health. Centre for Business Research Working Paper No.522, University of Cambridge