Suzanne M. Bianchi

Suzanne M. Bianchi, PhD (April 15, 1952, Fort Dodge, Iowa – November 4, 2013, Santa Monica, California) was an American sociologist.

Biography

Suzanne M. Bianchi was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa to Rita and Pesho Bianchi. Her mother was a housewife and her father was a meat packing plant employee. Bianchi is the oldest of six children. She and her husband have three children.

After graduating valedictorian from her high school, Bianchi was the first in her family to go to college and earned her B.A. in Sociology from Creighton University, her M.A. from University of Notre Dame, and her Ph.D from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

She began her career as a demographer for the U.S. Census Bureau, where she remained until 1994, then she joined the faculty at the University of Maryland, where she eventually chaired the university’s sociology department and directed the Maryland Population Research Center. In 2000 she served as President of the Population Association of America. In 2009 she moved to UCLA, where she was Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities. Among her main fields of study she focused on working mothers, researching and analyzing changes in American family life during the last decades. Bianchi also researched women's employment, how husbands and wives divide housework and time with children, and how women take care of their children and parents.

Death

Bianchi died from pancreatic cancer on November 4, 2013, aged 61. Her daughter Jennifer said of her mother, "She was very much aware of the constraints of juggling career and motherhood. She lived as well as researched it."

Contributions

Bianchi made many major contributions with her use of "time diaries". She was also the co-author of many books. One of her co-authors, Judith Selzer, said of her, "She always identified puzzles in the social world and tried to solve them by rigorous empirical studies."

See also

• Feminization of poverty
• Occupational segregation
• Time-use research
• Work–family balance in the United States