Ekaterina Hertog

Profile image of Ekaterina Hertog

Associate Professor in AI and Society, joint with the Oxford Internet Institute and in association with Wadham College

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 Journal of Marriage and Family, Demographic Research, and PLOS One.

Research Interests

AI, Future of Unpaid Work, Living with Technology, Family Sociology, Time Use, Gender Practices in Households, Contemporary Japanese Society

Areas of Interest for Doctoral Supervision

Gender and Technology, Domestic Automation, Digitalisation of private lives, gender equality, attitudes to technology, trust, Europe, Japan

Selected Publications

  • Hertog, E. et al. The Future of Unpaid Work: Estimating the Effects of Automation on Time Spent on Housework and Care Work in Japan and the UK (forthcoming)
  • Hertog, E. and Fetterolf, E. It's Not Her Fault: Trust through Anthropomorphism among Young Adult Amazon Alexa Users. SocArXiv Papers, Oct 2023
  • Hertog, E. et al. 'The Future(s) of Unpaid Work: How Susceptible Do Experts From Different Backgrounds Think the Domestic Sphere Is to Automation', PLOS One, 2023
  • Hertog, E. et al. Revisiting the Gender Revolution: Time on Paid Work, Domestic Work, and Total Work in East Asian and Western Societies 1985–2016. SAGE Publications, 2022

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