CYP Book Launch: "Overinvested" by Nina Bandelj, with Tina Miller

Nina Bandelj is Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research lies at the intersection of economic sociology, cultural sociology, and political economy, with a particular focus on the relationship between emotions, markets, and social inequalities. In Overinvested, she explores how contemporary parenting has become shaped by economic logics and emotional expectations, examining how children increasingly come to be treated as investment projects requiring intense financial, emotional, and temporal commitment. Drawing on interviews, financial data, and analyses of parenting literature, the book offers a thought-provoking account of the “emotional economy” of modern parenting and its broader social consequences.

Tina Miller is a Professor of Sociology at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. Her research interests include family lives and significant transitions, gender, identities and reproductive health. She has been an advisor at the World Health Organisation, contributed to think tanks, political parties and parliamentary committees in the UK and at the EU. She regularly participates in TV and radio programmes in relation to her research and publications on motherhood, fatherhood and managing paid work and care in contemporary family lives. Tina has recently authored three BBC Radio 4 Analysis Programmes on aspects of Contemporary family lives and based on her research findings. Her fourth Cambridge University Press monograph ‘Motherhood: Contemporary Transitions and Generational Change’, was published in November 2023 and received a Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Titles in 2024.

The session is hosted by the Children and Young People Research Network at Oxford Brookes University. It will begin with a short introduction by Audrey Harroche, followed by the author’s presentation, a discussion with Tina Miller, and a Q&A with the audience.

You can find further information about the book here, including the table of contents and the first chapter for those who would like to preview the book. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

We hope you will be able to join us to celebrate this new publication and take part in the discussion.
 
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