Shaun's current research investigates the distributional and ideological conflicts that are reshaping the politics of liberal welfare states.

Shaun's new book Living Wages and the Welfare State with Policy/University of Bristol Press published in 2021 here. The book takes a sociological perspective on minimum wages and living wage campaigns and shows how they challenge the architecture of the low-wage policy consensus in the liberal welfare states.  

Shaun is working with Prof Alan Morris of UTS, A/Prof Gaby Ramia of Sydney University, Dr Emma Mitchell of WSU and Dr Catherine Hastings of UTS on a ARC Discovery Project on housing and work precarity of international students. Our most recent study covers the impact of the COVID-19 recession on students here.   

Shaun's other active research interests are Australia's welfare-to-work policies, union voting patterns, and the political sociological foundations of the Australian electorate. 

Shaun is an Investigator of the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes and edits a series called Australian Social Attitudes with the Sydney University Press.  

Shaun is privileged to have recently supervised or co-supervised several talented PhD and Masters students -- Dr Catherine Hastings, Vikas Arya of WSU, Dr Charlotte Overgaard of Macquarie Univ, Aprill Miles, and Dr Sobhi Albadawi.    

Shaun's Google Scholar page is here.

Shaun teaches an undergraduate units An Introduction to Social Policy and Social Inequality (SOCI 2030 and 3070) and coteachesstgraduate unit on public policy Policy Ideas in Focus (SOCI 8075). When he is not working, he is travelling to interesting places to look at birds and wildlife.