Stephen Drinkwater is Professor of Economics at the Business School at the University of Roehampton, London. He was previously a Reader in Economics at Swansea University and a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Surrey prior to that. He has also been employed as a research fellow at the University of Portsmouth and Manchester Metropolitan University. Stephen is also a research fellow at the Institute for Labor Economics (IZA) in Bonn, the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) at the University of Manchester, the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Data, Research and Methods (WISERD) and the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), University College London.

Stephen's main research interests lie in applied micro economics, particularly within the labour market as well as regional issues. His research has primarily focused on labour market discrimination, self-employment, industrial relations, international and interregional migration, the effect of language on economic activity and voting behaviour.

Stephen has received research funding from a range of external organisations including the European Commission (to investigate the impact of East-West migration following EU enlargement), the Joseph Rowntree Foundatiaon (to examine the performance of ethnic minorities in the UK labour market), the Welsh Government (to analyse subjective wellbeing as well as various projects on labour market outcomes), NORFACE (to examine migration strategies of recent Polish migrants to the UK), the Office for Manpower Economics (to estimate ethnic pay gaps in the public sector) and the ESRC (for a socio-economic analysis of recent Polish migration to the UK, to assess widening access policies on HE participation in Wales, to match EUSS data with other sources and to investigate aspects of civil society). With regards to the latter he is currently a co-investigator on a work package on the WISERD Civil Sratification and Civic Repair project (£6.3 million funding from 2019 to 2024) which follows on from the initial WISERD Civil Society project (£6.2 million funding from 2014 to 2019).

Stephen has carried out a range of consultancy projects including for the OECD, Government Office for Science, ESRC, European Commission/IZA, Welsh Development Agency, Surrey County Council, Portsmouth City Council and South Hampshire Local Authorities.

Projects include Entrepreneurship amongst Ethnic and Immigrant Groups in the UK (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the Impact of Immigration on Host Economies (Government Office for Science), an Evaluation of the Census Programme (ESRC) and Welfare Participation Amongst Immigrants in the UK and Assessing the Migration Potential from Eastern Partnership Countries to the UK (European Commission/IZA).

Labour Economics 

Research Methods