--- description: Find out why Emily Oster is one of the 100 most influential people of 2022. title: Emily Oster: The 100 Most Influential People of 2022 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt88944b41264fb1fd/698a31fd0116829004981e4c/Emily-Oster-time100-2022.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- May 23, 2022 # Emily Oster by Steven Pinker  Emily Oster Cody O’Loughlin—Guardian/eyevine/Redux Emily Oster Cody O’Loughlin—Guardian/eyevine/ReduxCody O’Loughlin—Guardian/eyevine/Redux In a dubious revolution in child-rearing, the superstitions of old wives have been replaced by the superstitions of child-rearing experts. [Mothers are now pelted with advice](https://time.com/4989068/motherhood-is-hard-to-get-wrong/ "undefined") on how they are harming their kids, from sleeping on their backs during the third trimester to praising them with “Good job!” The advisories, no matter how onerous, contradictory, or tenuous, ratchet ever upward, since who wants to take a chance? A savior for whipsawed mothers is [Emily Oster](https://time.com/5572471/emily-oster-cribsheet-interview/ "undefined"), a professor at Brown—not of pediatrics or psychology but economics. In best-selling books (_Expecting Better, Cribsheet,_ and most recently _The Family Firm_), her [popular newsletter](https://emilyoster.substack.com/ "undefined"), and [social media](https://www.instagram.com/profemilyoster/?hl=en "undefined"), Oster weighs trade-offs, distinguishes trivial from substantial risks, and evaluates evidence for causation in a messy world. Enriching this analytical brilliance is the common sense and empathy that come from being a mother herself. Oster shows how _data,_ a scary word, can be a humanizing force. As one mother put it, “She restored my sense of being an adult with a working brain and not just a working uterus.” _Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of_ The Blank Slate _and_ Rationality Emily Oster Is on the 2022 TIME 100 List ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2022/6177827/emily-oster/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2022/6177827/emily-oster/"},"headline":"Emily Oster","datePublished":"2022-05-23T10:25:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:09.240Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2022/6177827/emily-oster/","keywords":["TIME 100","franchise","TIME100 2022"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt88944b41264fb1fd/698a31fd0116829004981e4c/Emily-Oster-time100-2022.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt88944b41264fb1fd/698a31fd0116829004981e4c/Emily-Oster-time100-2022.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2022/6177827/emily-oster/","name":"Emily Oster"}}]}] ```