The demands of home aren’t going away. And they aren’t going to be solved by men doing more and women doing less. Given these long-time realities, Leah Ruppanner calls for “significant and impactful solutions” in this talk.

“We need more women taking more risks to make big, bold, innovative solutions that help us all,” she says. “If we invest in those solutions—if we actually give women the money they need to build them out, to trial them, to test them, to scale them—we will live in a better world.”

Watch Leah Ruppanner’s future-focused Big Ideas Talk on the Work and Family Researchers Network Video Channel to see examples of some technology solutions and to learn how they might save us from household drudgery.

Watch Leah Ruppanner’s Big Ideas Talk on the Work and Family Researchers Network Video Channel to learn about the flexibility stigma—why we think remote workers are slackers and what that says about our work culture.

About Leah Ruppanner

Leah Ruppanner is a Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab and Gender Equity Imitative at the University of Melbourne. She was awarded top in field for all of Australia for Gender Studies (2022 and 2023) and Sociology (2023). Ruppanner is a leading expert on the gender impacts of COVID-19 with work cited in top outlets – Demography, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Gender and Society. Her forthcoming book Drained offers a new understanding of the mental load and concrete solutions to tame its drain (Penguin Random House USA, Allen Unwin Australia, Atlantic Books UK). Her previous book Motherlands provides a typology of childcare and gender policies across US states (Temple). Ruppanner’s research is regularly featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes and other international news outlets.