Wen Fan 范雯
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Boston College, where I study two questions: what people want from their work, and what work does to them in return. I take up these questions as work changes—where we do it, how long we spend on it, and what we expect from it—and trace how these changes shape people's attitudes, health and well-being, and lives outside work in the United States, China, and beyond.
I am currently working on three projects:
- a study of remote and hybrid work during the COVID-19 pandemic (with Phyllis Moen; funded by NSF);
- a project on the employee, organizational, and societal impacts of four-day workweeks (with Juliet Schor, Orla Kelly, and Phyllis Moen; funded by NSF and the Russell Sage Foundation); and
- a study of how young people in China understand the meaning of work, drawing on in-depth interviews.
I received my Ph.D. in Sociology and M.S. in Statistics from the University of Minnesota.
I also keep a short record of the readings that changed how I think about work and life.
Selected work
In the media
Scientific American · Nature News · BBC · NPR · PBS · Bloomberg · USA Today · Newsweek · Business Insider · Fast Company · New Scientist · The Boston Globe · CBC · Al Jazeera · Euronews · El País · Folha de S.Paulo · Le Temps