Overview
Certain opportunities aligned with a given job—such as access to dependable family care, reliable and affordable transportation, and workplace benefits like health care and paid leave—can affect people’s ability to succeed at work. WorkRise generates evidence on and elevates our understanding of how these social determinants of work can support job stability and worker well-being as well as how they affect equity in the workplace.
Working Knowledge

Social determinants of work
Last updated on May 14, 2024
Research Summary
Creating Pathways to Remote Work Opportunities for Workers with Disabilities
Remote work can offer significant benefits for both workers and businesses and provides important opportunities for the meaningful inclusion of workers with disabilities. Employers, policymakers, workforce developers, and educational institutions all have an important role to play in reducing occupational segregation among disabled workers to open equitable pathways to remote work arrangements and career mobility.
Social determinants of work, Immigrant workers
Last updated on April 16, 2024
Curated Research
Bridging the Gap for New Americans
This US Department of Labor study examines New Americans with foreign credentials in the US workforce from 2017 to 2022, finding they are often underemployed despite their qualifications and highlighting opportunities for better integration to boost the economy.
Last updated on April 16, 2024

Social determinants of work
March 05, 2024
Article
Move to Opportunity or Invest Locally: What helps workers get ahead?
Federal, state, and local investment in underresourced communities is more effective in improving low-wage workers’ economic mobility than moving them to well-funded communities.
Social determinants of work, Immigrant workers
Last updated on March 01, 2024
Curated Research
Examining Afghan Evacuees’ Resettlement: Insights and Lessons for Future Humanitarian Populations
This Urban Institute report draws on interviews with Afghan refugees and community stakeholders in Chicago, San Antonio, and northern Virginia to document the effects of humanitarian parole—two-year authorizations to enter and work in the United States without a pathway to permanent residency—on topics such as employment, housing, family separation, and physical and mental health.
Last updated on March 01, 2024
Research
Social determinants of work, Scheduling, Mental health
Executive Summary
July 13, 2023
The Rise and Fall of Underemployment: Implications for Workers' Health
This brief offers an overview of the literature exploring the connection between underemployment and health outcomes. Public policies can be crucial in mitigating the negative health effects associated with underemployment. However, more comprehensive data on transitions into and out of underemployment are required to inform future research and policy initiatives.
Grantee Research
Social determinants of work
Brief
September 29, 2022
The EITC and Racial Income Inequality
A new analysis from WorkRise grantees finds that the earned income tax credit reduces racial income inequality among lower- and middle-income households but may widen it for households in deep poverty.
Grantee Research
Social determinants of work
Executive Summary
March 29, 2022
Income Inequality, Race, and the EITC
New grantee research finds the 1993 expansion of the earned income tax credit reduced income inequality among Black and white households in the lower half of the income distribution through a significant employment response among Black households.
March 29, 2022
Social determinants of work
Report
March 15, 2022
Implications of Providing Child Care Assistance to Parents In Education and Training
New WorkRise research uses microsimulation to model a hypothetical policy scenario where more parents in education and training were eligible for and received public child care subsidies.
Grantee Research
Social determinants of work
March 15, 2022
Expanding Child Care Subsidies to Parents in Education and Training
A fact sheet summarizes findings from a new WorkRise report that models a hypothetical policy scenario where more parents in education and training were eligible for and received public child care subsidies.
Grantee Research