ideal work | Work in Progress

Before you continue reading, I want you to do an experiment. Go to the first person you see and ask them, “How are you?”

My guess is that a lot of people you asked (especially if you are at work) said, “Busy.” (I suspect the runner-up responses are “Tired” or “Stressed” which are related to being busy.).

If you are wondering what happened to the response “I’m fine” or “I’m OK,” read on.

In her new book, Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, Brigid Schulte draws on research from psychology, sociology, management, economics, medicine, and personal experience to talk about being “time poor” or simply being busy. The book has generated a great deal of interest, been reviewed in the NY Times, the Washington Post, and was named a top book of 2014. Read More

by Julie A. Kmec, Lindsey T. O’Connor, and Scott Schieman

President Obama’s State of the Union address last month recognized that working women—and men—should not face hardship for taking care of their family responsibilities.Recent research by sociologists,Julie A. Kmec, Lindsey Trimble O’Connor and Scott Schieman suggests that workplaces have a long way to go before realizing the President’s message. In new research, they find that working mothers perceive penalties—like feeling ignored and that they are given the worst tasks—when they adjust their work schedules after having children. They suggest that policies and practices that challenge societal assumptions about ideal work are a good starting place in attempts to realize President Obama’s call to give working parents a “break.”