Consumer society and consumer culture, working hours and lifestyles, environmental degradation, the emergence of a sustainable consumption and production sector, including political consumption and the new sharing economy, and alternative, sustainable economies and societies.

Academic Profile

Juliet Schor’s research has focused on issues of work, consumption and sustainability. Her “work and spend” cycle is an integrated approach to production and consumption which emphasizes the sociological dynamics that determine spending. Most recently she is working on issues of sustainable consumption and production, with particular emphasis on political consumption, new patterns of time-use, and alternative economic structures. As a member of a MacArthur Research Network she is studying the emergence of collaborative consumption.

Courses Typically Taught

SC025 - People and Nature
SC560 - Consumption and Sustainability
SC771 - Consumer Society

Recent Awards and professional accomplishments

Winner, 2011 Herman Daly Award from the US Society for Ecological Economics
Winner, 2006 Leontief Award from Tufts University
MacArthur Foundation grantee and research network member
2011 Senior Fellow, Center for Humans and Nature
Visiting Professor, Yale University
Guggenheim Fellow

Recent Publications

True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale, high-satisfaction economy (paperback version of Plenitude) (Penguin 2011).

Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (New York: Scribner), September 2004.

“Does Changing a Light Bulb Lead to Changing the World? Civic Engagement and the Ecologically Conscious Consumer,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, forthcoming 2013 (with Margaret Willis).

“The Underdog Effect: The Marketing of Disadvantage through Brand Biography,” Journal of Consumer Research, 37(5), February 2011. (with Neeru Paharia, Anat Keinan and Jill Avery).

“In Defense of Consumer Critique: Re-visiting the Consumption Debates of the 20^th Century,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 611:16-30, May 2007.

"Sustainable Consumption and Worktime Reduction," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Special Issue on Sustainable Consumption, 9(1):37-50, 2005.