Yan is a DPhil candidate at the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on fatherhood and children's wellbeing in the context of China's Great Migration, which is embedded in the unique social and political context of China’s rural-urban segregation. Yan also studies how the clash between traditional gender norms and the new changes brought by the feminisation of migration plays a role in influencing fathers' involvement with children, and how these changes are associated with children’s outcome indicators.
Yan holds a Master of Social Work from Columbia University and an MSc in Social Research Methods from the University of Warwick. Before her current studies, Yan worked at UNICEF as a Child Protection Officer. She started her career as a social worker in lower east side New York and worked with children with developmental disabilities. She later worked in Laos and China on poverty alleviation, local development and child protection.
Research Interests: Migration, fatherhood, children’s wellbeing, gender