Russel Sage Foundation

The Russell Sage Foundation is saddened to report the passing of Suzanne M. Bianchi, a former Visiting Scholar and co-author of several RSF books. Bianchi, who held faculty positions in sociology at the University of Maryland and UCLA, rose to prominence for her groundbreaking research on the changing dynamics of late-20^th-century American families, and in particular, for her demographic surveys on “time use”—or analyses of where, how, and with whom people spend their time. Her influential findings included the discovery that working mothers in the 1990s spent as much time with their children as stay-at-home mothers of the 1960s, averaging a weekly twelve hours of hands-on, close-contact time.

At the Russell Sage Foundation, Bianchi was a member of the working group Care Work in the United States and additionally served on the advisory committee of the U.S. 2010 program. A Visiting Scholar at the Foundation during the 2010-2011 academic year, she worked in collaboration with Judith Seltzer and Joseph Holtz to assess three primary pathways through which families transmit advantage or disadvantage to subsequent generations: genes and biology, economic resources and skills, and social ties and family obligations.

Bianchi was also the co-author of several books published by the Foundation, including American Women in Transition, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, and Balancing Act: Motherhood, Marriage, and Employment Among American Women.

Click here to read the New York Times’ obituary.