 n
the interview below, in-cites talks with Dr. Jerry Jacobs
about his highly cited work in the field of Social Sciences.
According to Essential
Science Indicators ,
his record in this field includes 14 papers cited a total of
145 times to date. His most-cited paper is the 2001 Work and
Occupations paper, "Overworked individuals or overworked
families? Explaining trends in work, leisure, and family
time," (Jacobs JA and Gerson K, Work Occupation
28[1]: 40-63, February 2001), with 40 cites to date. Dr.
Jacobs is the Merriam Term Professor of Sociology at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
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Would you give us some
background on your education and early research?
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“The busiest Americans are busier than their European counterparts.” |
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I received my Ph.D. in sociology at Harvard in 1983, and have
been teaching at the University of Pennsylvania ever since.
I also served as President of the Eastern Sociological Society in
2003 and am in the last year of a three-year term as editor of the American
Sociological Review.
I have written extensively on opportunities for working women
over the last two decades. My research has addressed a number of
aspects of women's employment, including authority, earnings,
working conditions, part-time work, and entry into male-dominated
occupations.
I have authored three books, Revolving Doors: Sex Segregation
and Women’s Careers (Stanford University Press, 1989), Gender
Inequality at Work (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1995),
and The Time Divide: Work, Family and Gender Inequality, with
Kathleen Gerson (Harvard University Press, 2004)—which is now
available in paperback. My current research projects include a study
of women’s entry into the medical profession, funded by the Macy
Foundation, and a study of working time and work-family conflict
among university faculty.
What do you consider the main thrust of your research?
I have studied various aspects of women’s career opportunities.
The central theme has been trying to assess the changes in women’s
roles—and especially women’s employment opportunities—that we
have witnessed over the last few decades.
Several of your papers deal with the conflict between work and
family time. What trends have you discovered, and are things moving in
a positive or negative direction?
One key point in this line of research has been that there are
disparate trends for different groups in our society. Busy
professionals have experienced a speed-up: they are working longer
work-weeks than was the case a generation ago. Many also face
increased productivity pressures on the job as well as heightened
expectations for contributing to family life at home. This research
also focuses on busy families, not just busy individuals.
In the recent book, The Time Divide (Harvard University
Press, 2004), Kathleen Gerson and I suggest that working 50 hours
per week means one thing if you have a stay-at-home spouse and
another thing if your spouse also works 50 hours per week. Thus,
work-family pressures are best understood in the context of the
family economy rather than from the point of view of the individual.
How does the US compare with other industrialized countries on
gender issues and work vs. leisure time?
The busiest Americans are busier than their European
counterparts. A much greater fraction of Americans work more than 50
hours per week, and more American couples put in 100 plus hours per
week compared with their European counterparts.
If you are free to talk about it, please tell us about your
current projects.
I am currently working on a book about women physicians in the
United States, and a paper on couples where both partners work in
the same occupation.
Jerry A. Jacobs, Ph.D.
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA, USA
| Dr. Jerry Jacobs's
most-cited paper with 40 cites to date: |
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Jacobs JA, Gerson K, "Overworked individuals or overworked families? Explaining trends in work, leisure, and family time,"
Work Occupation 28(1): 40-63, February 2001. |
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Source:
Essential Science Indicators |
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cites
