Lucinda Platt is Professor of Social Policy and Sociology in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She joined the Department in 2013 from UCL Institute of Education, where she was Director of the Millennium Cohort Study. Lucinda teaches on topics relating to migration, ethnicity, disability, poverty, and social mobility at undergraduate and MSc level; and she supervises PhD students in these areas.

Lucinda’s research focuses on the analysis of inequality within and between social groups, in the UK and internationally. As a Panel Member of the IFS Deaton Review of Inequality, she co-authored a study investigating ethnic inequalities in vulnerability to COVID-19, and wrote a commentary on gender, ethnicity and migration. She is currently Co-I on an ESRC-funded project on racial and ethnic inequalities across the life course (PI Imran Rasul, IFS & UCL). For this she is investigating the economics of identity, social mobility across ethnic groups and attitudes to ethnic inequalities. She is also currently researching migrant selection, aspirations and labour market transitions of minority ethnic groups, and the relationship between poverty and ethnicity, and co-editing an OUP Handbook on Social Stratification.

Lucinda's research has been published in major sociology journals (e.g. Social Forces, Sociology, European Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology), as well as journals in the fields of ethnicity and migration (e.g. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Migration Review), survey methodology (e.g. Survey Research Methods), economics (e.g. Oxford Economic Papers), and social policy (e.g. Journal of Social Policy). She has also published numerous book chapters on poverty, social mobility and inequality, as well as reports commissioned by government departments on topics including poverty, educational inequalities, health, and ethnic income inequalities. A revised and expanded edition of her book, Understanding Inequalities: Stratification and Difference, was published by Polity in 2019.

Lucinda has been principal or co-investigator on research projects funded by the ESRC, Norface, European Commission, various UK government departments, the Nuffield Foundation, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. She has been co-investigator on Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, leading on ethnicity and immigration for the study since its inception in 2007.

Lucinda is Visiting Professor at UCL, Research Associate at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex and Fellow of the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM). She has held visiting positions at University of Queensland, CUNY Graduate Centre, DIW Berlin, the Melbourne Institute, Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica, UAB, Barcelona, and the EUI, Florence. Lucinda is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and President of the European Academy of Sociology. She was awarded an OBE in the 2020 New Year's Honours.

Further resources

Lucinda’s web page provides more information on her research and publications. It gives information on and links to the various research projects she has been involved in.

Google Scholar

Lucinda supervises doctoral studies in areas including:
International Migration; Immigrant integration and citizenship; Ethnicity and inequality; Disability; Child development and child outcomes; Gendered educational and economic inequalities; Social mobility; Social identities.