Social Stratification and Inequality

My main research interest is social stratification and inequality, focusing on nonstandard employment and its stratifying role in creating new fronts of social and economic inequality. It is motivated by enduring questions central to sociology: How do macro-level structural changes, such as labor market transformation, shape experiences, opportunities, and outcomes of individuals and family? How do these effects vary by national contexts? Over the past several decades, the labor market across the globe has experienced rapid expansion of nonstandard employment that has profound implications for social inequality and policy. However, the social and economic influences of this ongoing structural change across population groups remain understudied. Using advanced statistical methods and comparative lens, my past and current research demonstrates that expansion of nonstandard work has widespread real-life consequences for the well-being of individuals, children, and the family, and these effects vary by national context, such as the gender norm, family culture, and economic institutions.

In one paper, I examine the link between nonstandard employment and entry into homeownership in Russia and urban China, revealing how and why such relationship varies by different institutional contexts -- the mortgage credit market -- in these two countries (with Ted Gerber, forthcoming, Social Forces). With Jim Raymo, I investigate how nonstandard employment shapes individuals' subjective well-being in Japan, and how such relationship insects with gender, marital status, and worker's motivation (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2021). My other ongoing studies examine how maternal employment – with focus on nonstandard employment and nonstandard work schedules – affects children’s developmental outcomes, and how this effect differs between children with mothers across the education spectrum. Findings demonstrate a general pattern of “diverging destinies” exists in the link between maternal employment and child well-being between children of low- and high-educated mothers, in both Japan and the United States where marriage and family institutions differ substantially (one working paper, one Under Review).

Others in social stratification

My other research in this field focuses on social change and consequences in transitional societies, demonstrating how structural forces could shape both objective and subjective inequality in post-socialist countries. Situated in post-reform urban China, my publication in Social Science Research (with Yu Xie) adopts a structural approach and demonstrates how the rise of private sector and sectoral job mobility in post-reform urban China affects workers’ self-reported happiness and explores the underlying mechanisms. Another study with Raymond Wong explores the gendered relationship between the age-specific fertility rates and earnings among young Chinese workers (Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 2021).I am also working with Theodore Gerber to study social stratification in Russia, including topics such as self-employment, housing inequality, and fertility intention.

Family Demography

My work in family demography illustrates that various forms of and stability in extended family coresidence and strong family ties could intertwine with and shape social inequality both within and across generations. Situated in Japan with a family culture emphasizing strong intergenerational interactions, my research (with James Raymo, Chinese Journal of Sociology, 2020) explores how grandparental coresidence and residential proximity moderates the well-established income gradient in child development in Japan. Building on and extending the “diverging destinies” framework, another ongoing research using Japanese data (with James Raymo) explores how parental support, such as coresidence and economic support, as one family behavior among others could mitigate or exacerbate the educational gradient in economic well-being among divorced mothers. I also investigate the relationship between the timing and stability of grandparental coresidence and child outcomes (with Jingying He, Child Indicators Research).

Health, Aging, and the Life Course

My recent work in the area of aging and the life course focuses on the “loneliness epidemic” and explores the prevalence, determinants, and consequences of loneliness among older Americans. I work with James Raymo to advance the empirical research on the demography of loneliness at older ages, using both life tables and decomposition methods (Demography, 2022). I also examine the long-term influence of early childhood conditions on later-life loneliness and the racial variation in the United States (with Shiro Furuya, Journal of Gerontology, Series B: Social Sciences, Online first).

Another branch of my work investigates higher education and health. I take a life course perspective and examine how college quality, the horizontal dimension of higher education, shapes individuals’ physical and mental health at midlife in the United States (with Jordan Conwell, SSM-Population Health).

Migration

My published studies in China Economic Review (with Shu Cai) and Social Indicators Research explore mechanisms underpinning the puzzle that internal migration in China is not necessarily related to lower subjective well-being and social status among migrants under the hukou system, a pattern opposed to findings in many other western countries. I also study how village migration as a contexual factor shapes subjective well-being of population staying behind in rural China (PAA Annual Meeting, 2018).