Susan L. Averett, Ph.D.

Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics

Lafayette College

I am the Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. I am also a Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) and the Global Labor Organization (GLO), and I serve as Co-Editor of Economics & Human Biology.

My research lies in applied microeconomics, with a focus on health economics, labor economics, and the economics of gender and the family. I study how public policies and social circumstances shape health and economic well-being—with work on women in the workforce, women in STEM, obesity, child care subsidies, the minimum wage, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. My work has appeared in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Health Economics, the Journal of Population Economics, and Economic Inquiry, and has been covered by outlets including USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and Time.

I earned my Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from the University of Colorado and my B.S. in Economics from Colorado State University.

Updates

• New book: Disparate Measures: The Intersectional Economics of Women in STEM Work (with Mary Armstrong), MIT Press, 2024.
• New edition: Women and the Economy: Family, Work, and Pay (5th edition, with Saul D. Hoffman and Laura M. Argys), Bloomsbury Press, 2024.