Jennifer Ludden
Jennifer Ludden helps edit energy and environment stories for NPR's National Desk, working with NPR staffers and a team of public radio reporters across the country. They track the shift to clean energy, state and federal policy moves, and how people and communities are coping with the mounting impacts of climate change.
Previously, Ludden was an NPR correspondent covering family life and social issues, including the changing economics of marriage, the changing role of dads, and the ethical challenges of reproductive technology. She's also covered immigration and national security.
Ludden started reporting with NPR while based overseas in West Africa, Europe and the Middle East. She shared in two awards (Overseas Press Club and Society of Professional Journalists) for NPR's coverage of the Kosovo war in 1999, and won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for her coverage of the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When not navigating war zones, Ludden reported on cultural trends, including the dying tradition of storytellers in Syria, the emergence of Persian pop music in Iran, and the rise of a new form of urban polygamy in Africa.
Ludden has also reported from Canada and at public radio stations in Boston and Maine. She's a graduate of Syracuse University with degrees in television, radio, and film production and in English.
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Fast food and restaurant work used to be seen as an entry point for the young. Today, the average such employee is 29, and nearly a quarter are parents. For these workers, current wages are hardly enough to support them, let alone their families. -
At a time when most pregnant women work, there are new efforts to keep companies from unfairly targeting employees because of a pregnancy. Allegations of pregnancy discrimination persist and have even risen in recent years despite a decades-old law against it.
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Policymakers who've relied on health initiatives to address the mortality gap may take a look at the workplace. Family-friendly policies, like paid parental leave and subsidized child care, that could help keep women employed. -
A year after Massachusetts ended lifetime alimony, groups in a number of states are pushing similar legislation. They say alimony laws are outdated, based on a time when most women didn't work. But family lawyers say the proposals would punish those who've sacrificed their own career to help a spouse advance.
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Yahoo's telecommuting ban may be just what that company needs in a time of crisis. But some stay-at-home workers resent the implication that they are slacking off when the boss can't see them. Should society resurrect all the barriers between work and home?
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New census figures showing a link between single motherhood and poverty have some analysts touting marriage as a cure. But others say there are additional economic factors to consider. -
Strict regulations to combat baby-selling and fraud have meant the process of adopting a child can take much longer. Many nations also now feel stigmatized for sending babies abroad. As a result, some advocates say, many children are languishing in orphanages. -
For author Bruce DeSilva, Providence, R.I.'s storied history of mob violence and small-town sense of intimacy make it the perfect place to set his crime fiction. The only trouble, he says, is toning down the truth just enough to make it believable. -
NPR's Jennifer Ludden reviews Liza Mundy's new book, The Richer Sex, which argues that as women out-earn men, the balance of power will shift in the dating scene, the marriage market and family life.
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From infidelity to drinking problems, divorce attorneys say texts have become powerful tools for undermining a spouse's credibility, and more and more divorce and custody cases are making use of them.
