The Social Demography Seminars (SDS) at the Center for Population and Development Studies provide a lively forum for scholars from across the university to discuss in-progress social scientific and population research. Social demography includes work that uses demographic methods to describe and explain the distribution of social goods across populations. The Social Demography Seminar series thus welcomes presentations on a wide variety of topics such as family, gender, race/ethnicity, population health—including mortality, morbidity, and functional health—inequality, im/migration, fertility, and the institutional arrangements that shape and respond to population processes. The long-term goal is to build a broad and multi-disciplinary community of social demographers at Harvard.
The core programming committee includes Jason Beckfield, Mary Brinton, Christina Cross, Sasha Killewald, Joscha Legewie, Daniel Schneider, Mary Waters, and Xiang Zhou, all Harvard sociologists, plus Lisa Berkman, a social epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Elyse Jennings, director of research and a research scientist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.
The seminars occur on Thursdays, 12:00–1:15 p.m. in the conference room at 9 Bow Street in Harvard Square, Cambridge, unless otherwise noted**. The seminars are geared towards faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and those with other academic appointments (e.g., research scientist or associate).
For additional information or to be added to the email list for announcements, please contact Lesley Harkins.
Our winter/spring 2022 seminar series has concluded for the semester; the fall 2022 seminars will be posted here late summer/early fall.
Winter/Spring 2022
Paul Y. Chang, PhD, associate professor of sociology, Harvard University, will present
Intermarriage, assimilation theory, and the acculturation of global marriage migrants in South Korea.
Alexandra (Sasha) Killewald, PhD, professor of sociology, Harvard University, and
Nino José Cricco, doctoral student in sociology, Harvard University, will present
Have changing family demographics narrowed the gender wage gap?
Shannon M. Monnat, PhD, associate professor of sociology; Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion & Lerner Center director; and co-director of the Policy, Place and Population Health Lab, Syracuse University, will present
Rural population health in the context of drug overdoses, COVID-19, and longer-term mortality trends.
Roland J. Thorpe Jr., PhD, professor in the department of health, behavior, and society; and co-director of the DrPH concentration in health equity and social justice, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will present
Approaches to achieve health equity in aging.
Deirdre Bloome, PhD, professor of public policy, Harvard Kennedy School, will present
Rising class crystallization? Trends in multidimensional class inequality across racialized/ethnic groups.
Abstract for Deirdre Bloome's Seminar
In recent decades, U.S. income and wealth inequality grew, educational attainment rose, and occupational structures shifted. Because these dimensions of social class are intertwined—with higher education often generating higher income, wealth, and occupational prestige—rising inequality in one may have pushed some people toward the tops of multiple hierarchies, and others toward the bottoms of multiple hierarchies (polarizing people in the multidimensional space of class inequality). Are people occupying increasingly consistent positions across multiple class hierarchies? And has this class crystallization trended similarly for Black, White, and Hispanic people, despite their different opportunities, constraints, and initial class positions? We address these questions using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1984–2019. Our results suggest that one-dimensional studies do not adequately represent trends in class inequality. We provide methodological tools to foster multidimensional research.
Fenaba R. Addo, PhD, associate professor of public policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will present
At the intersection of race, occupational class status, and middle-class attainment.
Christina H. Fuller, ScD, associate professor in the department of population health science, Georgia State University School of Public Health, will present
Strategies to shift from air pollution injustice to environmental equity.
Susan Dynarski, PhD, Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, will present
Closing the gap: The effect of reducing complexity and uncertainty in college pricing on the choices of low-income students. This event will take place on Zoom AND at 9 Bow Street.
Sangeetha Madhavan, PhD, professor and chair, African American studies; and professor, sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, will present
Parenting from a distance: Children’s living arrangements and migrant well-being in South Africa. This event will take place on Zoom AND at 9 Bow Street.
Mariana Amorim, PhD, assistant professor of sociology, Washington State University, will present
Black-white disparities in nuclear family trajectories and parents’ postsecondary transfers to adult children. This event will take place on Zoom AND at 9 Bow Street.
David Pedulla, PhD, professor of sociology, Harvard University, will present
Racial discrimination in context: The role of organizational policies and practices in hiring discrimination. This event will take place on Zoom AND at 9 Bow Street.
Past Social Demography Seminars
