PhD student Melody Waring was recently selected as one of three recipients of the 2019 Dissertation Fellowship Award from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Through her project, “Caring for Aging Parents: Stratified Effects on Labor Force Participation,” Waring studies the relationship between caregiving and participation in the labor force by socioeconomic status.
The year-long fellowship includes a $28,000 cash award and the opportunity to present the research to the Social Security Administration, which funds the fellowship program. The program is intended to enhance research on retirement or disability issues.
Waring, who studies how social policy can alleviate the pressures of poor families navigating both unpaid family caregiving and labor force participation in low-wage jobs, will present a dissertation poster at the Retirement and Disability Research Consortium in Washington, D.C. in August. She expects to graduate in May 2020.