Cornell University's Center for the Study of Inequality (CSI) is devoted to understanding patterns, causes, and consequences of social and economic inequalities of many different forms. It supports cutting-edge research on inequality, trains undergraduate and graduate students, encourages the exchange of ideas among researchers, and disseminates research findings to a broader public.

CSI is based in the Sociology Department in the College of Arts and Sciences and has over 100 faculty affiliates in other departments within the College and across campus. CSI’s affiliates study and teach courses on a range of topics, including educational attainment and school-to-work transitions; inequalities in wages, income, wealth, health, and civic engagement; poverty and anti-poverty policy; intergenerational mobility and equality of opportunity; residential segregation and spatial differences in attainment; inequalities by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and identity, religion, age, disability status, and other social differences; the politics of inequality and the inequality of politics; and the relationship between global political, economic, and environmental changes and inequality.

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Michael Macy

Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Sociology, Director of the Social Dynamics Laboratory

Celene Reynolds

Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow

John Niederbuhl

Communications and Programming Coordinator, Center for the Study of Inequality

Kelly Musick

Professor of Public Policy and Sociology, Brooks Senior Associate Dean of Research

Publications

  • Fomby, Paula, Hope Harvey, and Kelly Musick. 2023. “Income Sources Across Childhood in Families with Nonresident Fathers.” Demography. DOI:10.1215/00703370-10424403

  • Lyttelton, Thomas, Emma Zang, and Kelly Musick. 2022. “Parents’ Work Arrangements and Gendered Time Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Journal of Marriage and Family. DOI:10.1111/jomf.12897

  • Musick, Kelly, Pilar Gonalons-Pons, and Christine Schwartz. 2022. “Change and Variation in U.S. Couples’ Earnings Equality Following Parenthood.” Population Development Review 48(2): 413-443. DOI:10.1111/padr.12481

  • Ishizuka, Patrick and Kelly Musick. 2021. “Occupational Inflexibility and Women’s Employment During the Transition to Parenthood.” Demography 58(4):1249–1274.
  • Gonalons-Pons, Pilar, Christine Schwartz, and Kelly Musick. 2021. “Changes in Couples’ Earnings Following Parenthood and Trends in Family Earnings Inequality.” Demography 58(3):1093–1117.
  • Nylin, Anna-Karin, Kelly Musick, Sunnee Billingsley, Ann-Zofie Duvander, and Marie Evertsson. 2021. “Trends in Women’s Relative Earnings Within Couples Across the Transition to Parenthood in Sweden, 1987-2007.” European Sociological Review 37(3):349–364.
  • Musick, Kelly, Megan Doherty Bea, and Pilar Gonalons-Pons. 2020. “His and Her Earnings Following Parenthood in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom.” American Sociological Review 84(4):639–674.
  • Flood, Sarah, Ann Meier, and Kelly Musick. 2020. “Reassessing Parents’ Leisure Quality with Direct Measures of Well-Being.” Journal of Marriage and Family 82(4):1326-1339.
  • Brew, Bridget, Abigail Weitzman, Kelly Musick, and Yasamin Kusunoki. 2020. “Young Women’s Joint Relationship, Sex, and Contraceptive Trajectories: Evidence from the United States.” Demographic Research 42(34):933-984.
  • Dunifon, Rachel, Kelly Musick, and Christopher Near. 2020. “Time with Grandchildren: Subjective Well-Being Among Grandparents Living with Their Grandchildren.” Social Indicators Research 148:681–702.
  • Hall, Matt, Kelly Musick, and Youngmin Yi. 2019. “Legal Status and the Living Arrangements and Family Formation Experiences of Latino Immigrants.” Population and Development Review 45(1):81-101.
  • Meier, Ann, Kelly Musick, Jocelyn Fischer, and Sarah Flood. 2018. “Mothers’ and Fathers’ Well-Being in Parenting Across the Arch of Child Development.” Journal of Marriage and Family 80(4):992-1004.
  • Musick, Kelly and Katherine Michelmore. 2018. “Cross-National Comparisons of Family Complexity and Stability.” Demography 55(4):1389-1421.
  • Fomby, Paula and Kelly Musick. 2018. “Mothers' Time, the Parenting Package, and Links to Healthy Child Development.” Journal of Marriage and Family 80(1):166-81.
  • Dunifon, Rachel, Paula Fomby, and Kelly Musick. 2017. Siblings and Children’s Time Use in the United States. Demographic Research 37(49):1611-24.
  • Musick, Kelly, Ann Meier, and Sarah Flood. 2016. "How Parents Fare: Mothers' and Fathers' Subjective Well-Being in Time with Children." American Sociological Review 81(5):1069-95.
  • Meier, Ann, Kelly Musick, Sarah Flood, and Rachel Dunifon. 2016. “Mothering Experiences: How Single-Parenthood and Employment Structure the Emotional Valence of Parenting.” Demography 53(3):649-74.
  • Musick, Kelly and Katherine Michelmore. 2015. “Change in the Stability of Marital and Cohabiting Unions Following the Birth of a Child.” Demography 52(5):1463-85.
  • Raymo, James, Kelly Musick, and Miho Iwasawa. 2015. “Gender Equity, Opportunity Costs of Parenthood, and Educational Differences in Unintended First Births: Insights from Japan.” Population Research and Policy Review34:179-199.
  • Meier, Ann and Kelly Musick. 2014. “Variation in Associations Between Family Dinners and Adolescent Well-Being.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 76(1):13–23.
  • Michelmore, Katherine and Kelly Musick. 2013. “Fertility Patterns of College Graduates by Field of Study, U.S. Women Born 1960–79.” Population Studies.
  • Musick, Kelly and Ann Meier. 2012. “Assessing Causality and Persistence in Associations Between Family Dinners and Adolescent Well-Being.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 74(3):476-93.
  • Musick, Kelly, Jennie Brand, and Dwight Davis. 2012. “Variation in the Relationship Between Education and Marriage: Marriage Market Mismatch?” Journal of Marriage and Family 74(1):53-69.
  • Musick, Kelly and Larry Bumpass. 2012. “Re-Examining the Case for Marriage: Union Formation and Changes in Well-Being.” Journal of Marriage and Family 74(1):1-18.
  • Musick, Kelly and Ann Meier. 2010. "Are Both Parents Always Better Than One? Parental Conflict and Young Adult Well-Being." Social Science Research 39:814-30.
  • Musick, Kelly, Paula England, Sarah Edgington, and Nicole Kangas. 2009. "Education Differences in Intended and Unintended Fertility." Social Forces 88(2):543-72.
  • Musick, Kelly, Judith A. Seltzer, and Christine R. Schwartz. 2008. “Neighborhood Norms and Substance Use Among Teens.” Social Science Research 37(1):138-55.
  • Wu, Lawrence L. and Kelly Musick. 2008. “Stability of Marital and Cohabiting Unions Following a First Birth.” Population Research and Policy Review 27(6):713-27.
  • Musick, Kelly. 2007. “Cohabitation, Nonmarital Childbearing, and the Marriage Process.” Demographic Research16(9):249-86.
  • Musick, Kelly and Robert D. Mare. 2006. “Recent Trends in the Inheritance of Poverty and Family Structure.” Social Science Research 35(2):471-99.
  • Musick, Kelly and Robert D. Mare. 2004. “Family Structure, Intergenerational Mobility, and the Reproduction of Poverty: Evidence for Increasing Polarization?” Demography 41(4):629-48.
  • Musick, Kelly. 2002. “Planned and Unplanned Childbearing Among Unmarried Women.” Journal of Marriage and Family 64(4):915-29.

Peter Rich

Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Sociology

Daniel T. Lichter

Ferris Family Professor of Policy Analysis and Management, Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Sociology

Publications

  • Lichter, D.T., Z-C Qian, and D. Tumin.  (2015).  “Who Do Immigrants Marry?  Emerging Patterns of Intermarriage and Integration in the United States.”  Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 660, forthcoming.
  • Lichter, D.T., D. Parisi, and M.C. Taquino. (2015).  “Toward a New Macro-Segregation?  Decomposing Segregation Within and Between Metropolitan Cities and Suburbs.”  American Sociological Review, forthcoming.
  • Thiede, B.C., D.T. Lichter, and S.R. Sanders. (2015).  “America’s Working Poor:  Conceptualization, Measurement, and New Estimates.”  Work and Occupations 42: 267-312.
  • Lichter, D.T., S.R. Sanders, and K.M. Johnson. (2015).  “Hispanics at the Starting Line:  Poverty among Newborn Infants in Established Gateways and New Destinations.”  Social Forces, forthcoming.
  • Parisi, D., D.T. Lichter, and M.C. Taquino. (2015).  “The Buffering Hypothesis:  Growing  Diversity and Declining Black-White Segregation in America’s Cities, Suburbs, and Small Towns?”  Sociological Science 2:125-157.
  • Lichter, D.T., D. Parisi, and M.C. Taquino.  (2015). “Spatial Assimilation in U.S. Cities and Communities?  Emerging Patterns of Hispanic Segregation from Blacks and Whites.”  Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 660(July): 36-56.
  • Crowley, M., D.T. Lichter, and R.N. Turner.  (2015). “Diverging Fortunes? Economic Well-Being of Latinos and African Americans in New Rural Latino Destinations. Social Science Research 51:77–92.

Kim Weeden

Jan Rock Zubrow ’77 Professor of the Social Sciences, Director of the Center for the Study of Inequality

Suzanne Mettler

John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions

Vida Maralani

Associate Professor

Ravi Kanbur

T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs

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