Have you ever been called lazy?

How did this affect you?

Have expectations about productivity ever made life more difficult for you?

Do you think it’s important to question the ‘lazy’ label?

Do you sometimes worry you might be ‘just lazy’ when you’re not doing much?

We want to hear from you!

Who we are looking for

If judgments about laziness have affected you in one way or another, we want to hear from you.

We especially want to hear from people who have lived experience with

  • disability or chronic illness

  • racial or ethnic discrimination

  • socioeconomic barriers

  • mental health challenges

  • neurodivergence (e.g. autism, ADHD)

Why your insights matter

  • Our research at the University of Oxford aims to better understand the meaning of the label ‘lazy’, and how it can affect people by

    • harming wellbeing – causing anxiety, low self-esteem, or burnout

    • enabling discrimination – leading to unfair treatment in employment, education and healthcare

    • deepening inequalities - disproportionately affecting ethnic minorities, those with chronic health conditions, neurodivergence, and those experiencing homelessness or unemployment

    Your experiences and insights are essential to ensure our research addresses the right questions.

  • Welfare reforms designed to reduce the number of people on benefits sometimes rely on simplistic assumptions about who 'deserves' support, excluding those labelled ‘lazy’.

    By sharing your experiences and insights, you can help transform policies to better recognise diverse abilities and create more inclusive standards of productivity.

  • Judgments about laziness often mask deeper problems in society such as discrimination, inequality, and a lack of essential healthcare services.

    Your insights can help expose these problems.