Susan N. Houseman (born 1956) is an American economist who is the vice president and director of research at the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. She is also a member of the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic co ...

Conference on Research on Income and Wealth, chairs the Technical Advisory Committee of the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the government of the United States, U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics, labor economics and ...

, and co-directs the Labor Statistics Program at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics.

Education

Houseman holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and international relations from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in economics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

(1985).

Career

Houseman began her career as a professor at the

University of Maryland School of Public Policy The University of Maryland School of Public Policy is one of 14 schools at the University of Maryland, College Park. The school is located inside the Interstate 495 (Capital Beltway), Capital Beltway. History On October 26, 1978, University of ...

and a visiting scholar at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

. She left these institutions in 1989 to join the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research of

Kalamazoo Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 73,598. It is the principal city of the Kalamazoo–Portage metropolitan are ...

, in large part because this position allowed her more time to raise her four children. Her research focuses on temporary help employment, outsourcing, and the way that these working arrangements affect workers' compensation and official measures of productivity. Her research has shown that extraordinary growth in the computer industry—not automation in other industries—is responsible for all of the unusual productivity growth in the manufacturing sector, and that declining manufacturing employment in the US is due more to

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. Traders generally negotiate through a medium of cr ...

than to

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

. During the

COVID-19 recession The COVID-19 recession was a global economic recession caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. The recession began in most countries in February 2020. After a year of global economic slowdown that saw stagnation of economic growth and consumer activit ...

, Houseman was a frequent commentator on

layoff A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing an organization ...

s and unemployment insurance programs. She also advocated the use of voluntary workshare programs to maintain relationships between workers and employers. Her research on the success of these programs in European countries was cited by the Biden presidential campaign in their plans to expand the use of such programs in the United States.

Selected works

* Houseman, Susan N. "Why employers use flexible staffing arrangements: Evidence from an establishment survey." ''Ilr Review'' 55, no. 1 (2001): 149–170. * David, H., and Susan N. Houseman. "Do temporary-help jobs improve labor market outcomes for low-skilled workers? Evidence from" Work First"." ''American economic journal: applied economics'' 2, no. 3 (2010): 96-128. * Houseman, Susan, Christopher Kurz, Paul Lengermann, and Benjamin Mandel. "Offshoring bias in US manufacturing." ''Journal of Economic Perspectives'' 25, no. 2 (2011): 111–32. * Houseman, Susan. "Outsourcing, offshoring and productivity measurement in United States manufacturing." ''International Labour Review'' 146, no. 1‐2 (2007): 61–80. * Abraham, Katharine G., and Susan N. Houseman. ''Does employment protection inhibit labor market flexibility? Lessons from Germany, France, and Belgium''. No. w4390. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1993.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Houseman, Susan American women economists 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists University of Maryland, College Park faculty Harvard University alumni American labor economists University of Virginia alumni Living people 1956 births 20th-century American women 21st-century American women