Princeton Professor Douglas Massey will speak on "Segregation and Stratification: A Biosocial Approach." According to the lecture's abstract, considerable research shows that black-white segregation persists in most metropolitan areas. The segregation does not decline with rising income or across the generations. Evidence suggests that it stems from continued racial discrimination in housing and lending markets and from the persistence of strong prejudice. Studies of neighborhoods have demonstrated that coming of age in racially isolated poor neighborhoods undermines the socioeconomic progress of African Americans above and beyond the negative effects of individual or family disadvantage. To date, most of the causal mechanisms that connect poor neighborhoods with individual outcomes have been social in nature, having to do with social capital, networks and role models. However, recent research on the effects of stress suggests that the intersection of biology with environmental stresses could be related to poor health, early mortality, impaired cognitive development, and low birth weight.

The Harvard University Lectures on Population will bring some of the most innovative and thoughtful scholars in the field to Harvard over the course of the current academic year. Each speaker will present a new piece of research or a broad critical assessment on demographic aspects of some key issue-for example, poverty, aging, reproductive health, ethnicity, economic development, labor markets, immigration, or the environment. The goal is to learn more about the best work and new ideas emerging outside of Harvard; to build a community of Harvard scholars interested in demography and population; and, ultimately, to provoke a wider discussion about Harvard's role in this critical area.

A second lecture is scheduled for November 14. Ronald Lee, professor of demography and economics and chair of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging, University of Califonia, Berkeley, will speak on "Rethinking the Evolutionary Theory of Aging."

For more information, visit http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/poplectures/.

Harvard University Lectures on Population

"Segregation and Stratification:
A Biosocial Approach"
Douglas Massey, Professor of Sociology
and Public Affairs
Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

Monday, October 20
3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
William James Hall, Room 1
33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA

"Rethinking the Evolutionary Theory of Aging"
Ronald Lee, Professor of Demography and Economics and Chair of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging, University of California, Berkeley

Friday, November 14
3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
William James Hall, Room 1
33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA