Eileen Appelbaum is a Co-Director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Visiting Professor in the Department of Management at the University of Leicester, UK. She has 20 years of experience carrying out empirical research on the effects of public policies and company practices on outcomes for companies and workers. She studies work processes and work-life practices of organizations and their implications for organizational effectiveness and for the quality of jobs. Recent publications examine employers' experiences with paid family leave in California and with paid sick days in Connecticut. Her book, Unfinished Business, Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family Policy, coauthored with Ruth Milkman, was published in November 2013. A new report with Ruth Milkman, “Good for Business: Connecticut’s Paid Sick Leave Law,” appeared in March 2014. Her current research examines the effects of private equity ownership and governance on companies and workers and her latest book, Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street, coauthored with Rosemary Batt, was published in March 2014.

Dr. Appelbaum has published widely on workforce, employment, productivity and labor market issues and on the labor market experiences of women. Her research has examined low-wage work in the US and Europe; work processes and quality of care in child care, elder care and health are; and policies and practices that facilitate the work and family lives of workers. Her books include the co-edited volume, Low Wage America: How Employers Are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace (2003) and the coauthored books, Manufacturing Advantage: Why Higher Performance Work Systems Pay Off (2000) and The New American Workplace: Transforming Work Systems in the US (1994), all three of which were selected by Princeton University as Noteworthy Books in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics. She has published widely in books and journals on wage and employment trends in industrialized countries and on the workplace and work-life practices of firms, including in Industrial Relations, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, British Journal of Industrial Relations, and International Labour Review. Dr. Appelbaum's recently published papers include "Low-Wage Work in High Income Countries," "Organizations and the Intersection of Work and Family: A Comparative Perspective," "Contesting Time: International Comparisons of Employee Control over Working Time," and "Balancing Work and Family: The Role of High Commitment Workplaces and Industrial Relations."