RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences

ISSUE ON "What Families Pay in Time: Developing a Time-Cost Perspective on Programs and Services for Families"

"Policy research on family wellbeing in the United States tends to focus on financial barriers to goods and services that families need to thrive. What families pay in time for goods and services and the processes by which these time costs are extracted through administrative structures are, by contrast, often invisible. To understand the true costs of and inequalities in families’ investments, we need a more robust analysis of the time costs that families at different points in the income distribution pay to access what they need across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

"We invite papers examining access to and interactions with educational, health, childcare, social, recreational, and developmental services. We are interested in the kinds of services acquired across the income distribution, which could include "optional" services like travel sports. While we would prefer to focus on interactions requiring time, rather than access to goods and services, we are also open to research about how people use money to outsource or mitigate time costs. Research might focus on services acquired for oneself or for children, older adults, or other dependents for whom regular care is given. We are also interested in research that takes service-delivering organizations as its unit of analysis, particularly the policies or management structures that shape clients' time costs.

Prospective contributors should submit a CV and an abstract (up to two pages in length, single or double spaced) of their study along with up to three pages of supporting material (e.g., tables, figures, pictures, etc.) no later than 5 PM EST on January 6, 2027."

Read the complete call for articles here