Dr Umair Ali
Biography | Dr Ali is a researcher and educator specialising in public policy, with a primary focus on the economics of education, early childhood education and care markets, and public health economics. He earned his PhD in Public Administration and Policy from Arizona State University in 2022, where he concentrated on education policy, labour economics, and advanced research methodologies. His work is driven by a commitment to producing policy-relevant research that addresses pressing socioeconomic and demographic challenges. Dr Ali's research has been featured in leading academic journals, including the Economics of Education Review, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and the Journal of Public Economics. His published studies address critical topics such as the impact of COVID-19-related policies on early childcare and education services, the effects of childcare regulations on labour market outcomes, and the influence of immigration enforcement policies on the childcare market. At the School of Health and Social Care (SHSC), Dr Ali’s research focuses on administrative data analysis, integrating administrative datasets with publicly available census data to examine the socioeconomic circumstances of Scottish veterans—a key demographic within public policy priorities. This work also seeks to compare and assess the accuracy and reliability of existing datasets for veteran-centred research. Beyond his work at SHSC, Dr Ali's personal research explores areas such as the long-term academic outcomes of full-day kindergarten programmes and the effects of low-skilled immigration on parental time allocation for childcare. |
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Research Interests | Economics of Health, Economics of Education, Public Economics, Early Childhood Education and Care |