Dr Louise Overton
Associate Professor Of Social Policy And Director Of Chasm
University Of Birmingham
Louise is an Associate Professor in Social Policy and Director of the Centre on Household Assets and Savings Management (CHASM). Her research interests focus on older people and personal finance (and personal finance-related issues), including financial security, financial advice, and the regulation of consumer financial services.
Louise’s research is strongly empirical, but against a backdrop of welfare privatisation and the individualisation of economic risk, she is also interested in more normative questions concerning the role of, and balance of responsibility between, the state, the market, and the individual for later life financial well-being.
Louise has carried out extensive research on the role and relevance of housing wealth as a source of retirement finance, with a particular emphasis on equity release. Her published work in this area has gained widespread press coverage, and has been used by the Financial Conduct Authority, the equity release industry and its trade body, as well as in the development of Age UK’s Equity Release Advice Service.
Prior to joining the University of Birmingham, Louise worked as a Research Fellow on a major, multi-disciplinary, Leverhulme-funded project: Mind the (Housing) Wealth Gap: Intergenerational Justice and Family Welfare ’at the Universities of Durham and Essex.