Joya Misra, professor of Sociology and Public Policy, presented research on work-family policies at three conferences in Madrid, Atlanta, and Dallas this semester. As a leading expert in the field, Misra was the inaugural recipient of the World Bank/Luxembourg Income Study Gender Research Award and, in 2010, was named editor of the premier journal Gender and Society.
In October, Misra took her cross-national policy work to the Juan March Institute Conference in Madrid. With Stephanie Moller and Eiko Strader, Misra presented “The Sources of Inequality Across the Globe” which presented findings from a National Science Foundation-funded project that examined cross-national effects of work-family policies on poverty for women and, particularly, mothers. Misra and collaborators sought to understand why poverty varies so dramatically cross-nationally — especially for single mothers and their children — and how poverty is related to differences in policy contexts including welfare policies for families with children, labor market policies, and work-family policies that might enable (or limit) mothers’ ability to engage in paid employment.
At the American Sociological Association conference in Atlanta in August 2010, Misra’s presentations explored the intersection of policy and gender.”A Cross-national Perspective on Gender, Parenthood, and Employment,” presented by Misra, Michelle Budig, and Irene Boeckmann, extended work which developed a database of Work-Family Policy Indicators for 22 countries. With additional funding from the National Science Foundation, these researchers continue to examine how work-family policies, economic factors, and larger cultural forces may mediate wage and employment inequalities. With Jennifer Lundquist and Abby Templer, Misra also presented findings related to her UMass Administration-MSP Joint Work-Life Committee study in “Gendered Patterns of Work-Time and Care-Time among Faculty.” Additionally, Misra was the session organizer of “Race, Gender, Class Implications of Transnational Carework” and participated in an Author-Meets-Critics about Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America (New York University Press, 2008) by Jeanne Flavin while at the conference.
Finally, In Dallas in April, Misra, Budig and Boeckmann presented “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood in a Cross-National Perspective: Relationships with Work-Family Policies and Cultural Attitudes” at the Population Association of America. The research presented here found that “despite the varying socio-political contexts of the countries in our analyses, social policies and norms that support new mothers’ continuous connection to the labor force are most strongly linked to reductions in motherhood wage inequalities.”
For more information on Misra’s research, visit her website.