As a work-family scholar, I've been delighted to see how many times work-family issues have made the national news this year. From the Atlantic to the New York Times to Newsweek to Time, the national media has devoted significant print to issues...

As we approach the 2012 elections, we continue to hear much debate about reducing the size of government. President Obama was roundly criticized last month by conservative pundits when he suggested that public (not private) sector job losses were the biggest hindrance in America's road to economic recovery....

On Tuesday, June 5, Congress will vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill designed to strengthen the Equal Pay Act, which President Kennedy signed into law in 1963, "making it illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who perform substantially equal work." At...

In the 1980s, Arlie Hochschild wrote that "working woman" evokes in our collective consciousness a picture of a woman with a briefcase in one hand, and a baby in another. In my research on women living in New York City 25 years later, I found that...

Equal Pay Day comes this year in the midst of the renewal of the so-called "mommy wars" on the one hand, and a blatant attack on equal pay rights bills on the other. Last week, Hilary Rosen set off a media maelstrom when she said that Mitt Romney's...

The Artist took home five Oscars at Sunday's Academy Awards, including the top prize, and many attributed the film's success to its beautiful tribute to Hollywood's silent film past. While I agree that the film is certainly a loving homage to the glamor of the movies,...

In December, the majority of Americans spend a great deal of time and energy preparing for a holiday that celebrates the birth of a child. Given this focus, this seems like an excellent time of year to ask how America's children are faring. I'm afraid that three recent trends suggest...

As the holidays approach, more moms than ever are both buying and making the turkey that will be on the table Thanksgiving day. Last week, the Census published a report showing that 73% of new mothers aged 20 and older (and 76% of those 22 and older) worked...

The New York Times and other media outlets popularly dubbed the recession of 2007-2009 a "man-cession," vividly painting a picture of the unemployed men hit hard by economic woes. Yet new data published by the Institute for Women's Policy Research suggests that the years that have...

The Working Mother Research Institute released a report last week in which the vast majority of mothers surveyed reported that the main reason they worked (or would work) was for a paycheck.

When I conducted 80 interviews with women living in New York City about their...

It's National Work-Family Month and, while we have a ways to go to making work-family balance a reality for all, I also think that we have a lot to celebrate this month. Women's portion of the labor force hit an all-time high in the last decade and it remains at...