Faiza Shaheen | |
---|---|
Born | 1982 (age 41–42) |
Education |
|
Alma mater | |
Occupation | Economist |
Employer | London School of Economics |
Notable work | Know Your Place |
Political party | Labour |
Spouse | Akin Gazi |
Children | 1 |
Website | Faiza Shaheen |
Faiza Shaheen (born 1982) [1] is a British academic and economist in the field of economic inequality. In 2018, and again in 2022, she was selected to be the prospective parliamentary candidate for Labour for Chingford and Woodford Green. In 2023, her first book, Know Your Place, was published.
Shaheen was born in Whipps Cross University Hospital, Leytonstone, in East London [2] and grew up in Chingford, also in East London. [3] Her father was a car mechanic from Fiji and her mother was a laboratory technician from Karachi, Pakistan, where they met. [4] [5] [6] [7] She has a brother and a sister. [6]
She attended Chingford Church of England Primary School, [8] Chingford Foundation School and Sir George Monoux College in Walthamstow. [9] Her first job was at Greggs the bakers in Chingford Mount. [2] After reading philosophy, politics and economics at St John's College, Oxford University, [5] Shaheen studied at the University of Manchester, being awarded an MSc in Research Methods & Statistics and a PhD. [10]
Shaheen first worked at the Centre for Urban Policy Studies, University of Manchester. In 2007, she joined the urban policy research charity, Centre for Cities. [11] In 2009, she became senior researcher on economic inequality at the New Economics Foundation.
In 2014, she was appointed Head of Inequality and Sustainable Development at the charity Save the Children UK. [10] From 2016, she was director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS), a policy think tank originating from the trade union movement. [12] [13] [14]
Between 2021 and 2023, Shaheen was the Inequality and Exclusion Program Director at the Center on International Cooperation, New York University. She is a visiting professor in practice at the International Inequalities Institute of the London School of Economics where she teaches the Masters course on inequality. [15] [16] [14]
Shaheen is a regular contributor to debates on television news programmes, including Newsnight and Channel 4 News , and has worked with Channel 4 and the BBC to develop documentaries on inequality. [17] [18] She also contributes to festival debates and discussions, such as the Glastonbury Festival [19] and The World Transformed. [20]
In 2023, Shaheen's first book, Know Your Place, on social inequality in the UK, was published by Simon and Schuster. Shaheen wrote the book during evenings and weekends while working full-time at the LSE. [21] [22]
Shaheen is a longtime Labour voter and says she has been politicised from an early age. She joined the Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015. [6] In 2017, The Guardian identified her as a "rising star" [4] and she was nominated for Woman of the Year at the Asian Achievers Awards and named one of the Top 100 Influencers on the Left by LBC broadcaster, Iain Dale. [23] [24] [25] According to one newspaper, she has been compared to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. [26]
Shaheen was selected to be the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party for Chingford and Woodford Green in July 2018. [27] [5] [28] She has stated that her motivation for standing was the stress her own and other families had suffered as a result of welfare reforms instituted by the constituency’s longstanding Conservative incumbent, Iain Duncan Smith, [5] [29] during his time as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. In the 2019 general election, Shaheen was endorsed by Alastair Campbell, [30] Hugh Grant, [31] Ayesha Hazarika, [32] Ewan Pearson and David Schneider. [33] She increased Labour’s vote share, contrary to the national trend, and garnered the party’s largest ever vote share in the constituency, but lost by a narrow margin. [34] In July 2022, Shaheen was selected to contest the seat again for the Labour Party at the 2024 United Kingdom general election. [35]
Shaheen supports universal childcare, free school meals for primary school children, increased funding for the state education sector including investment in special needs provision and child mental health support, the abolition of university tuition fees, improved local transport links, and the restoration of neighbourhood policing with additional police officers and PCSO’s. [36] Shaheen has been vocal on the urgency of the need to rebuild the local Whipps Cross Hospital and to expand the NHS workforce to reduce waiting lists and improve provision. [36]
Shaheen advocates action on the climate crisis, supporting efforts to increase investment in greening the UK’s economy and boosting renewable energy. [36]
Shaheen’s first book, Know Your Place, is part memoir, part polemic. Shaheen describes the work as “a personal and statistical look at how society and the economy are structured, what really defines your life chances and how our current system keeps us locked into an ugly hierarchy.” Supported by copious statistics, Shaheen delves into factors ranging from inherited wealth to class, race, and education to argue that social mobility is “a fairytale” propagated by those with wealth and power as a means to protect their status and privilege. [9]
The book was described as ‘A stunning and devastating indictment of a society scarred and defined by inequality, by one of the most charismatic and compelling voices in politics today’ by Owen Jones, while Ash Sarkar commented that ‘Faiza’s work is living proof that you don’t have to choose between focusing on class and battling racism, or to triangulate on hate in order to advance a political cause. She’s a testament to the power of rising with your community, and not out of it.’ [37]
Shaheen is married to the actor Akin Gazi. [26] They have one son (born 2024) [38] [39] and live in Woodford Green, Woodford, East London. [40]
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