In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its corresponding effects on work, such as increased burnout, the four-day work week has re-emerged as a way to promote work-life balance, productivity, and a reduction in companies’ carbon footprint. Economist Juliet Schor and sociologists Wen Fan and Phyllis Moen will examine the effect of a four-day work week schedule on job quality, worker productivity, workers’ quality of life, and the environment.

In recent years, technology companies have grappled with the underrepresentation of Black, Latinx, and women workers. Research has shown that women and people of color face specific organizational barriers in the tech industry. Sociologist Sigrid Luhr will examine how the transition to remote work at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic affected experiences of work-life conflict and whether these experiences vary by race, gender, and parental status. She will conduct 120 longitudinal in-depth interviews for her study.

Federal law only guarantees new parents six weeks of unpaid time off and only about one-fifth of workers have employer-provided paid family leave. Additionally, not all workers who are eligible for state or employer programs take parental leave, possibly due to perceived penalties and stigma associate with it. Sociologists Trenton Mize, Richard Petts, and Gayle Kaufman will examine attitudes towards parental leave taken by single parents (both women and men) and parents in same-gender and different-gender couples. They will conduct a survey experiment for their study.