Julia R Henly, PhD

Julia Henly is Samuel Deutsch Professor and Deputy Dean for Research and Faculty Development in the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Her research examines the organization of work and care among low-income families and how employment conditions and public policies shape their lives. Her work addresses three interconnected questions: How does the growing precarity of employment affect how families manage work and caregiving responsibilities? How can child care policy simultaneously support parents’ employment, promote children’s development, and provide decent jobs for the child care and early education workforce? And can policies regulating low-wage work give workers greater stability and predictability in ways that improve their economic and family well-being?

A major strand of Henly’s research examines nonstandard and unstable work schedules. Her research documents the prevalence and consequences of precarious work timing and shows how schedules that are difficult to predict or control can disrupt family life and make it difficult for parents to use formal child care arrangements. This work highlights a fundamental mismatch between the temporal demands of contemporary employment and the schedules and operating hours of formal child care programs.

A second strand examines child care policy and the tensions that arise from its multiple purposes. Henly’s research examines how child care subsidies and other policy and financing arrangements shape families’ access to and stability of care, as well as conditions for child care providers. Her work considers the challenges of achieving accessible, affordable, high-quality care while sustaining a viable child care workforce, particularly in a context of precarious employment, high costs of care, and poor compensation in the child care sector.

A third strand examines fair workweek policies that regulate scheduling practices in low-wage hourly jobs. Her current research examines whether workers covered by fair workweek laws experience more stable schedules than comparable workers in similar jobs in regions without such laws. This work extends her research on precarious employment by considering whether policy can change the employment conditions that make it difficult for low-income workers to manage work and caregiving.

Henly employs longitudinal, quasi-experimental, and mixed-methods approaches using diverse data sources. She frequently collaborates with state and local governments and community organizations, enabling her to study policies and programs in their implementation contexts and contribute empirical evidence to policy discussions.

Henly is a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and the Society for Social Work and Research. She was a Fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program (2016–2018) and a Distinguished Fellow of the William T. Grant Foundation (2016–2017). She received her B.A., with honors, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her M.S.W. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Her research appears in leading peer-reviewed journals, edited book volumes, policy briefs, and reports.