The Russell Sage Foundation is dedicated to the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States. It supports innovative research on social, political, and economic inequalities and aims to enhance the understanding and mitigation of factors contributing to inequalities. The foundation fosters projects exploring the distribution of outcomes across various groups and encourages methodological diversity and interdisciplinary collaboration in research.
The Future of Work Grant Program focuses on supporting innovative research related to the quality of jobs for low- and moderately paid workers and their families in the U.S. It explores the impact of employer practices, the labor market, and public policies on employment, earnings, and job quality. The program emphasizes analyses leveraging new or inventive uses of data, including original data collection for projects aligned with its priorities. It encourages a variety of methodological approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration, expecting projects to have strong conceptual frameworks and research designs. Areas of interest include effects of emerging technologies on work, shifting labor dynamics post-COVID-19, labor market power, workforce development, changes in employer practices, and policy responses to evolving work-family dynamics. Funding supports research assistance, data acquisition and analysis, and investigator time for both conducting research and writing results, with grants offering up to $200,000 over two years.