Liana C. Sayer

Liana C. Sayer is Director of the Maryland Time Use Laboratory and Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland. Her research explores vital questions on when, where and how time use matters, and for whom, over time and space. Published work shows that determinants of household work and gendered relationship dynamics are mediated by culturally distinct working time regimes and gender ideologies, such that progress toward gender equality is thwarted by the deeply intertwined, mutually reinforcing nature of gendered families and institutions. Her research has been published in Journal of Marriage and Family, Social Forces, and American Journal of Sociology.

Sayer's current projects reflect new explorations of time use variation within and between social groups, across generations, and around the world. These projects conceptualize time use broadly as a distillation of gendered, classed, and racialized practices that express differential life-course endowments of cultural knowledge, cognitive capacities, social resources, time consciousness and health behaviors. Projects underway are focused on testing new methods of collecting and analyzing time use data and investigating continuity and change in the joint influences of gender, race-ethnicity, and social class on time use across the life course.