Mission Statement

The Work & Family Impact Lab studies the social, economic, and workplace factors that affect men’s and women’s ability to combine a successful career with a fulfilling family life.

The Lab forms partnerships with academics and leaders from private and public sectors to generate, communicate, and implement novel, evidence-based interventions that address contemporary work-family challenges.

Our research contributes to academic knowledge while also being highly meaningful and practical for corporate and community leaders. We rely on methods that allow for causal inference, such as field and survey experiments, as well as descriptive approaches, such as surveys, interviews, and observations.

We advance scholarship, organizational leadership, and education in three key ways:

• Conduct collaborative research with academic and non-academic partners that improves career outcomes and well-being for workers with families 

• Create communities of dialogue and knowledge-sharing between scholars and organizational leaders

• Contribute to UC Santa Barbara’s educational mission by building undergraduate and graduate students’ research skills and leadership experience

Our vision is that, by producing knowledge and creating learning opportunities, we will help to make work work better for workers with families. Evidence suggests that these efforts will positively impact the economy and society more broadly.