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Sari Pekkela Kerr, Ph.D, senior research scientist/economist, Wellesley Centers for Women

U.S. Does Not Have Paid (Federal) Family Leave

Although research shows clear benefits of family leave, the U.S. remains the only developed country that does not offer paid family leave for its workers. This hampers women’s work efforts and endangers the wellbeing of children.

The Olympics may be—on the surface—about international goodwill, but they are more baldly about political competition. They also offer a report card on gender equity progress. One could credit the rise of women’s athletics in the U.S., not to the passage of Title IX in 1972, but to the Cold War realization that the medal gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was essentially the difference in women’s participation.

Wellesley Centers for Women Welcomes Two New Research Scientists

Research Scientist Erin Johnson is a microeconomist who studies questions in health care such as how physicians respond to financial incentives when making treatment decisions. In addition to measuring impacts of various factors on treatment, her work is interested in the resultant impacts on patient health, which she measures using patient diagnoses and other health indicators. Some of her current work examines how the physician-patient relationship affects treatment.