Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Schor is also a member of the
MacArthur Foundation Connected Learning Research Network. Schor’s research focuses on
consumption, time use, and environmental sustainability. A graduate of Wesleyan
University, Schor received her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Massachusetts. Before
joining Boston College, she taught at Harvard University for 17 years, in the Department of
Economics and the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies. In 2014 Schor received the
American Sociological Association’s award for Public Understanding of Sociology.
Schor’s most recent books are Sustainable Lifestyles and the Quest for Plenitude: Case
Studies of the New Economy (Yale University Press, 2014) which she co-edited with Craig
Thompson, and True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans are Creating a Time-Rich,
Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy (2011 by The Penguin Press,
previously published as Plenitude.) As part of her work with the MacArthur Foundation,
Schor is currently researching the “connected economy,” via a series of case studies of
sharing platforms and their participants. She is also studying the relation between working
hours, inequality and carbon emissions.
Schor’s previous books include the national best-seller The Overworked American: The
Unexpected Decline of Leisure (Basic Books, 1992) and The Overspent American: Why We
Want What We Don’t Need (Basic Books, 1998). The Overworked American appeared on the
best-seller lists of The New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, The Village
Voice The Boston Globe as well as the annual best books list for The New York Times,
Business Week and other publications. The book is widely credited for influencing the
national debate on work and family. The Overspent American was also made into a video of
the same name, by the Media Education Foundation (September 2003).
Schor also wrote Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
(Scribner 2004). She is the author of Do Americans Shop Too Much? (Beacon Press 2000),
co-editor of Consumer Society: A Reader (The New Press 2000) and co-editor of Sustainable
Planet: Solutions for the Twenty-first Century (Beacon Press 2002). She has also co-edited a
number of academic collections. Schor’s scholarly articles have appeared in the Economic
Journal, The Review of Economics and Statistics, World Development, Industrial Relations,
The Journal of Economic Psychology, Ecological Economics, The Journal of Industrial Ecology,
The Journal of Consumer Research, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Sciences, and The Journal of Consumer Culture, among others.
Schor is a former Guggenheim Fellow and was the Matina S. Horner Distinguished Visiting
Professor at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University in 2014-15. She is also a former
Brookings Institution fellow. She is the recipient of the 2011 Herman Daly Award from the
US Society for Ecological Economics. In 2006 she received the Leontief Prize from the Global
Development and Economics Institute at Tufts University for expanding the frontiers of
economic thought. She has also received the George Orwell Award for Distinguished
Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language from the National Council of
Teachers of English. She has served as a consultant to the United Nations, at the World
Institute for Development Economics Research, and to the United Nations Development
Program. In 2012 Schor organized the first Summer Institute in New Economics, a week-long
program for PhD students in the social sciences, and repeated the program in 2013.
Schor is a co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream (newdream.org), a national
sustainability organization where she served on the board for more than 15 years. She is the
vice chair of the board of the Better Future Project, one of the country’s most successful
climate activism organizations. She is a co-founder of the South End Press and the Center
for Popular Economics. She has also served as a Trustee of Wesleyan University, and as an
occasional faculty member at Schumacher College. Schor has lectured widely throughout
the United States, Europe and Japan to a variety of civic, business, labor and academic
groups. She appears frequently on national and international media, and profiles on her and
her work have appeared in scores of magazines and newspapers, including The New York
Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and People magazine. She has appeared on 60
Minutes, the Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show on CBS, numerous stories
on network news, as well as many other television and radio news programs.