Eileen Appelbaum joined Rutgers University as Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work in March 2002. She was promoted to Professor II (distinguished professor) in 2006. The Center for Women and Work has grown to a full-time staff of 8 plus graduate students and part-time employees, and an annual budget of more than $1 million. Formerly Dr. Appelbaum was Research Director at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. and Professor of Economics at Temple University. She spent several summers as a Guest Research Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB).  In 1995 Dr. Appelbaum was elected to a three-year term on the Executive Board of the Industrial Relations Research Association, and served on the IRRA Editorial Committee from 2000 to 2006. From 1996 to 2005 she served on the Advisory Council of the WZB. In 2000 Dr. Appelbaum served on the National Academy of Sciences’ Commission that examined the supply and demand for IT workers in America. More recently she served on New Jersey’s Corporate Business Tax Reform Study Commission. In 2007 she received the Rutgers University President’s Award for Research in Service to New Jersey. From July 2007 to June 2009 she will co-chair the annual Sloan Industry Studies Conference. Dr. Appelbaum received the PhD. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Appelbaum has more than 20 years of experience carrying out empirical research on workplace practices and labor-management cooperation. One strand of her research focuses on work-life practices of organizations, with an emphasis on issues related to work time and flexibility. Her published papers include “Organizations and the Intersection of Work and Family: A Comparative Perspective,” in The Oxford Handbook on Work and Organizations; “Contesting Time: International Comparisons of Employee Control Over Working Time,” in Industrial and Labor Relations Review; and “Balancing Work and Family: The Role of High Commitment Workplaces and Industrial Relations,” in Industrial Relations. She has published two reports focusing, respectively, on the experiences of New Jersey companies with family leaves and turnover and on the work-life balance challenges faced by New Jersey parents of children with chronic conditions such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, diabetes and so on. She has testified about the importance of family leave to both employees and employers at hearings in Trenton, NJ and Washington, DC.

A second major strand of Dr. Appelbaum’s work focuses on modern human resource and work organization practices. She has studied and written extensively about employee participation, and is co-author of Job Saving Strategies: Worker Buyouts and QWL (1988), The New American Workplace (1994), and Manufacturing Advantage: Why High Performance Work Systems Pay Off (2000). Both of the last two books were chosen by Princeton University for its lists in 1995 and 2001 respectively of Noteworthy Books in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics. Dr. Appelbaum’s research has also examined employment relations and management practices in the low wage labor market. She co-edited Low Wage America: How Employers Are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace (2003), chosen by Princeton University for its 2003 list of Noteworthy Books.

Dr. Appelbaum’s  current research examines work organization and management practices in center-based early care and education (ECE) settings. The research is based on a two-state study of 70 center-based ECE programs in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Prior research has established the link between high staff turnover and poor quality care and low wages and inadequate training of teaching staff in ECE. This study examines ECE centers and preschools as adult work environments, and focuses on the extent to which high turnover and low commitment to the work may also be related to how work in these establishments is organized and managed.
In addition, Dr. Appelbaum has published numerous articles on the workforce, part-time employment, labor market experiences of women, and the service sector of the economy.  In 2007 she coauthored a paper on skills in low-paid service occupations commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences entitled, “High-Touch and Here-to-Stay: Future Skill Demands in Low Wage Service Occupations.”

Expertise: Child Care, Flexible Work Schedules, Global Economy/Global Focus, Paid Family Leave - State, Work/life Integration