Ekaterina’s research interests lie at the intersection of digital sociology and family sociology. She leads the ESRC-funded DomesticAI project that scopes new technologies’ potential to free up time now locked into unpaid domestic labour and measures how willing people are to introduce these technologies into their private lives.
First research findings offering predictions about the transformative potential of domestic automation have been published in PLOS ONE as The future(s) of unpaid work: How susceptible do experts from different backgrounds think the domestic sphere is to automation and Technological Forecasting and Social Change as The future of unpaid work: Estimating the effects of automation on time spent on housework and care work in Japan and the UK.
Looking more broadly at how digital technologies integrate into domestic life she also published a paper in Convergence on ‘It’s not her fault’: Trust through anthropomorphism among young adult Amazon Alexa users.
Hertog’s earlier study of never-married single mothers in Japan that provides an in-depth analysis of Japanese women’s decision-making on childbearing issues and the related value systems was published as a book by Stanford University Press titled Tough Choices: Bearing an Illegitimate Child in Contemporary Japan. Her other research includes analyses of gender differences in time use in East Asia and an investigation of digital dating records from one of Japan’s largest matchmakers to scrutinise partner search processes, identifying the social factors that drive individual success and failure on the Japanese marriage market. She has published in journals such as the Journal of Marriage and Family, Demographic Research, and PLOS ONE.
Parental Control Technologies and Family Dynamics, Future of Unpaid Work, Technology in Everyday Life, Family Sociology, Time Use, Gender Practices in Households
Monitoring Technologies in Family Care, Domestic Automation, Digitalisation of Private lives, Cross-Country Variation in Attitudes to Technology, Gender and Technology
This programme supports research in the sphere of AI & Work.
This project explores the introduction of AI technologies to unpaid domestic work and the potential benefits and vulnerabilities related to this.
A data-driven approach to understanding structural determinants of digital inequalities
With Professor Ekaterina Hertog, and Professor Victoria Nash
We welcome Professor Katya Hertog of the OII for the presentation of her paper on young adult users of Amazon's Alexa programme.
8 March 2024
As we mark International Women’s Day, Professor Ekaterina Hertog, spoke to us about AI, the automation in the home and the impact of such technologies on women in the workplace and wider society.
10 October 2023
Users of Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa are employing three strategies to manage distrust in the technology, a new study by researchers at the University of Oxford and Stanford University finds.
22 February 2023
Four in ten hours currently devoted to unpaid housework and care of children and other family members could be automated within the decade, according to research from the University of Oxford and Ochanomizu University.
iNews, 17 April 2024
Apps and algorithms can now help with bedtimes, meal planning and birthday parties, but Genevieve Roberts is wary of trusting AI with her three children.
Irish Independent, 16 November 2023
A woman’s work is never done. That old chestnut keeps running through my mind as I read the headlines about how artificial intelligence (AI) is potentially going to take all of our jobs, including some of the roles we never wanted in the first place.
Daily Mail Online, 10 October 2023
Oxford and Stanford researchers found people ignored Alexa safety concerns because of the voice.
DPhil Student
Clementine is a DPhil student at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her research focuses on AI and gender.
DPhil Student
Lily is a DPhil student at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her research focuses on gender inequality and remote work.
DPhil Student
Felix is a OII DPhil Student, a research assistant at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and a Fellow at Columbia University's Tow Center. As a Leverhulme Doctoral Scholar he is researching AI in journalism and the news industry.
DPhil Student
Ziyu Deng is a DPhil student in Information, Communication, and Social Sciences. She is interested in the relationship between offline social environments and the online reproduction and propagation of public opinions.
DPhil Student
Isabel is a DPhil student at the OII studying dating app design.
This course provides students with the opportunity to engage with the methodological, ethical and philosophical underpinnings of quantitative and qualitative social science research practices.
This course is designed to give students hands‐on practice gathering qualitative data and provide students with the knowledge and skills to analyse various types of qualitative data analysis collected from both online and offline settings.
