New workforce options is topic for NYC forum

By Susan Lang

Scholars from around the world will discuss the social changes and challenges facing families and the new workforce at a four-day interdisciplinary research and policy forum, "Sustainable Careers: New Options for a New Workforce," Feb. 19-22, at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

Sponsored by Cornell's Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center and the Cornell Careers Institute, the University of Minnesota and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the forum is intended to provide an important overview of the policy implications of what researchers know about work, family, dual-earner couples, the aging workforce and the new economy.

"While each has been considered separately, no conference has tried to bring these disparate topics together," said Phyllis Moen, formerly of Cornell and now a professor at the University of Minnesota, who organized the conference. "We hope to shed new light on all these issues by considering them in concert, thereby providing a new framing to contemporary workforce issues."

The issues to be addressed will range from managing work and family stress; navigating a job loss; the changing workforce; inequality at work; technology and work; workers with disabilities; immigrants and the workforce; and implications of life transitions. The forum will be held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society.

The keynote address on careers will be given by Howie Becker, a sociologist who first wrote on careers in the 1950s. Moen will be speaking on "Integrative Careers: Time In, Time Out and Second Acts." Among the other notable speakers is Cornell Professor Richard Burkhauser.

For more information or to register, contact Jane Peterson at jampeter@umn.edu.