Economist Emily Oster still believes that data can ease (some) parental anxiety
EMILY OSTER DOES NOT OFFER PARENTING advice. She is rather insistent on this point. A Brown University economist who specializes in health data, Oster prefers to analyze numbers that help parents think through a decision. “When there isn’t any data, you can approach this in whatever way you want, including finding a parenting coach to counsel you on what to do,” she says. “But I’m not that parenting coach.”
Except occasionally she is. A leading voice in the debate on reopening schools during the pandemic, Oster has lately veered into more conventional “mommy blogger” content. She bristles at that characterization, and it’s true she doesn’t show off puzzlingly clean kids’ rooms or promote baby gear with discount links. And she hasn’t left behind and But she does seem to be trying to straddle both worlds.
