Welcome! My name is Wen Fan (pronounced Wun Fan). I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Boston College; I am also affiliated with the Sloan Research Network on Aging & Work. My research interests include the future of work, sociology of health, life course, social change, and quantitative methods. My overarching goal is to understand how social change, work environments, and family dynamics intersect to shape health and well-being over the life course and across different social contexts.
I received my Ph.D. in Sociology in 2015 and my M.S. in Statistics in 2014, both from the University of Minnesota. For more information about my published research, you can visit my Google Scholar, Research Gate, ORCID, or WFRN Panel of Experts pages. My CV is available here. I am currently working on three ongoing projects:
- An NSF-funded project focused on understanding the continuities, changes, and disparities in the experiences of remote and hybrid work during the COVID-19 pandemic (with Phyllis Moen).
- A research project examining the worker, organizational, and societal impacts of four-day workweeks, implemented in a diverse range of organizations worldwide (with Juliet Schor, Orla Kelly, and Phyllis Moen).
- A project investigating the pandemic-precipitated social changes and their mental health impacts in China (funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research) (PI: Yue Qian).
News and Events
2024-11: Participated in an event organized by Chinese Students Association and the Women’s Center at BC to discuss the meaning of being an Asian woman. It was wonderful to be part of the Asian women’s community at BC.
2024-10: I gave a talk on work-place mismatch at the Brown Bag Lecture Series hosted by Penn State’s Population Research Institute.
2024-04: I will give a talk on remote work at the 2024 Marconi Research Conference, organized by the Office Ergonomics Research Committee. Cannot wait to share the findings and engage in discussions with companies interested in remote/hybrid work!
2024-04: Julie Schor and I have been awarded a two-year grant for Research in Targeted and Emerging Areas by the Schiller Institute
2024-04: My paper “Becoming a Parent: Trajectories of Family Division of Labor in Germany and the United States” is now available online at Advances in Life Course Research
2024-03: Gave a talk on remote work and four-day workweeks at the “Workshop on New Perspectives on Work: Unemployment, Remote Work, Platform Work, and Workplace Inequality,” organized by Quan Mai at Rutgers. I’m so honored to have received the invitation, and it was truly a privilege to share the forum with so many scholars I deeply admire!
2024-02: I have been awarded a BC Research Incentive Grant to embark on a new research project this summer!
2024-02: Gave an inaugural seminar at the Work Time Reduction Research Network (WTR-RN) with Julie Schor
2024-01: My paper with Phyllis Moen “The Shifting Stress of Working Parents: An Examination of Dual Pandemic Disruptions—Remote Work and Remote Schooling” has just been published in Social Sciences
2023-12: My paper “Becoming a Parent: Trajectories of Family Division of Labor in Germany and the United States” has just been accepted in Advances in Life Course Research
2023-12: Gave a talk at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and received tons of interesting and useful questions!
2023-11: Did an interview with CBC for their “The Grind” series
2023-11: A briefing paper on remote/hybrid work and gender equality with Richard Petts!
2023-11: A paper with Yue Qian on stressful life events and mental well-being during COVID-19 is forthcoming in British Journal of Sociology
2023-11: I testified before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development to make the case for a four-day workweek pilot program—my first time testifying! Here is a Telegram report
2023-11: I will be joining the editorial board of the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2024
2023-10: Presented a paper on remote work at the SLLS annual conference at Munich
2023-09: My paper with Phyllis Moen—The Future(s) of Work? Disparities around Changing Job Conditions when Remote/Hybrid or Returning to Working at Work—is forthcoming at Work and Occupations. See here for a summary
2023-09: Interviewed by NPR, USA TODAY, and Scripps News on the four-day workweek component of the UAW strikes
2023-08: Interviewed by Fast Company on the exciting findings from four-day workweek trials
2023-08: My paper with Yue Qian (State Contexts, Job Insecurity, and Subjective Well-being in the Time of COVID-19) was just published in Journal of Happiness Studies
2023-06: Attended the ISA conference at Melbourne and met some old friends—my very second attendance of ISA after the 2014 Yokohama conference (when I was still a grad student!)
2023-06: Co-wrote an opinion piece with Julie Schor for Los Angeles Times on the four-day workweek
2023-05: Gave a talk at the New England Employee Benefits Council Annual Summit on workplace flexibility
2023-05: I will co-organize (with Jaeseung Kim) the Graduate Students Pre-conference Workshop for the 2024 WFRN Conference at Montreal—very excited to co-organize again after an extremely rewarding experience with Yvonne Lott in 2022
2024-10: I gave a talk on work-place mismatch at the Brown Bag Lecture Series hosted by Penn State’s Population Research Institute.
2024-04: I will give a talk on remote work at the 2024 Marconi Research Conference, organized by the Office Ergonomics Research Committee. Cannot wait to share the findings and engage in discussions with companies interested in remote/hybrid work!
2024-04: Julie Schor and I have been awarded a two-year grant for Research in Targeted and Emerging Areas by the Schiller Institute
2024-04: My paper “Becoming a Parent: Trajectories of Family Division of Labor in Germany and the United States” is now available online at Advances in Life Course Research
2024-03: Gave a talk on remote work and four-day workweeks at the “Workshop on New Perspectives on Work: Unemployment, Remote Work, Platform Work, and Workplace Inequality,” organized by Quan Mai at Rutgers. I’m so honored to have received the invitation, and it was truly a privilege to share the forum with so many scholars I deeply admire!
2024-02: I have been awarded a BC Research Incentive Grant to embark on a new research project this summer!
2024-02: Gave an inaugural seminar at the Work Time Reduction Research Network (WTR-RN) with Julie Schor
2024-01: My paper with Phyllis Moen “The Shifting Stress of Working Parents: An Examination of Dual Pandemic Disruptions—Remote Work and Remote Schooling” has just been published in Social Sciences
2023-12: My paper “Becoming a Parent: Trajectories of Family Division of Labor in Germany and the United States” has just been accepted in Advances in Life Course Research
2023-12: Gave a talk at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and received tons of interesting and useful questions!
2023-11: Did an interview with CBC for their “The Grind” series
2023-11: A briefing paper on remote/hybrid work and gender equality with Richard Petts!
2023-11: A paper with Yue Qian on stressful life events and mental well-being during COVID-19 is forthcoming in British Journal of Sociology
2023-11: I testified before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development to make the case for a four-day workweek pilot program—my first time testifying! Here is a Telegram report
2023-11: I will be joining the editorial board of the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2024
2023-10: Presented a paper on remote work at the SLLS annual conference at Munich
2023-09: My paper with Phyllis Moen—The Future(s) of Work? Disparities around Changing Job Conditions when Remote/Hybrid or Returning to Working at Work—is forthcoming at Work and Occupations. See here for a summary
2023-09: Interviewed by NPR, USA TODAY, and Scripps News on the four-day workweek component of the UAW strikes
2023-08: Interviewed by Fast Company on the exciting findings from four-day workweek trials
2023-08: My paper with Yue Qian (State Contexts, Job Insecurity, and Subjective Well-being in the Time of COVID-19) was just published in Journal of Happiness Studies
2023-06: Attended the ISA conference at Melbourne and met some old friends—my very second attendance of ISA after the 2014 Yokohama conference (when I was still a grad student!)
2023-06: Co-wrote an opinion piece with Julie Schor for Los Angeles Times on the four-day workweek
2023-05: Gave a talk at the New England Employee Benefits Council Annual Summit on workplace flexibility
2023-05: I will co-organize (with Jaeseung Kim) the Graduate Students Pre-conference Workshop for the 2024 WFRN Conference at Montreal—very excited to co-organize again after an extremely rewarding experience with Yvonne Lott in 2022