Family Demography Seminar syllabus, 2021 edition

PN Cohen photo: https://flic.kr/p/2jw1ZhA.

This week it’s back to teaching Family Demography, a graduate seminar in the sociology department. This year a majority of the students are from other departments around campus, and of course the whole thing will be online. So we’ll see! I added a few weeks of pandemic related readings. And some things I never read before. Feel free to follow along. Feedback welcome.

This is the schedule, with readings. A lot of them are paywalled, I’m sorry to say, but you might have access to them. (You can always try sci-hub, which has stolen most academic articles for you, so you don’t have to steal them yourself.) 

Family Demography

January 27

Introduction

Cohen, Philip N. 2021. “The Pandemic and The Family.” Supplement to The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change (3e). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 

February 3

Theoretical perspectives in demography

Bianchi, Suzanne M. 2014. “A Demographic Perspective on Family Change.” Journal of Family Theory & Review 6 (1): 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12029. (preprint: http://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC4465124&blobtype=pdf).

Sigle, Wendy. 2016. “Why Demography Needs (New) Theories.” In Changing Family Dynamics and Demographic Evolution: The Family Kaleidoscope, edited by Dimitri Mortelmans, Koenraad Matthijs, Elisabeth Alofs, and Barbara Segaert. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/86429/1/Sigle_Demography%20needs%20theories_2018.pdf.

Cohen, Philip N. 2021. The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change (3e). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Chapter 1, “A Sociology of the Family.”

February 10

Demographic transition

Thornton, Arland. 2001. “The Developmental Paradigm, Reading History Sideways, and Family Change.” Demography 38 (4): 449–65. https://doi.org/10.2307/3088311.

Bongaarts, John. 2009. “Human Population Growth and the Demographic Transition.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 364(1532):2985–90. 10.1098/rstb.2009.0137.

Pande, Rohini Prabha, Sophie Namy, and Anju Malhotra. 2020. “The Demographic Transition and Women’s Economic Participation in Tamil Nadu, India: A Historical Case Study.” Feminist Economics 26(1):179–207. https://umd.instructure.com/files/60782517/

February 17

Second demographic transition

Sassler, Sharon, and Daniel T. Lichter. 2020. “Cohabitation and Marriage: Complexity and Diversity in Union-Formation Patterns.” Journal of Marriage and Family 82(1):35–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12617.

Cohen, Philip N. 2011. “Homogamy Unmodified.” Journal of Family Theory & Review 3 (1): 47–51.

Schneider, Daniel, Kristen Harknett, and Matthew Stimpson. 2018. “What Explains the Decline in First Marriage in the United States? Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1969 to 2013.” Journal of Marriage and Family 80(4):791–811. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12481.

Zaidi, Batool, and S. Philip Morgan. 2017. “The Second Demographic Transition Theory: A Review and Appraisal.” Annual Review of Sociology 43(1):473–92. https://10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053442.

February 24

U.S. History

Ruggles. Steven. 2015. “Patriarchy, Power, and Pay: The Transformation of American Families, 1800-2015.” Demography 52: 1797-1823. (His lecture version at PAA.)

Bloome, Deirdre, and Christopher Muller. 2015. “Tenancy and African American Marriage in the Postbellum South.” Demography 52 (5): 1409–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-015-0414-1.

Cherlin, Andrew J. 2020. “Degrees of Change: An Assessment of the Deinstitutionalization of Marriage Thesis.” Journal of Marriage and Family 82(1):62–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12605.

Cohen, Philip N. 2021. The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change (3e). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Chapter 2, “History.” 

March 3 [FIRST PAPER DUE]

U.S. Today

Guzzo, Karen Benjamin, and Sarah R. Hayford. 2020. “Pathways to Parenthood in Social and Family Contexts: Decade in Review, 2020.” Journal of Marriage and Family 82(1):117–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12618.

Goldscheider, Frances, Eva Bernhardt, and Trude Lappegard. 2015. “The Gender Revolution: A Framework for Understanding Changing Family and Demographic Behavior.” Population and Development Review 41 (2): 207–+. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00045.x.

Smock, Pamela J., and Christine R. Schwartz. 2020. “The Demography of Families: A Review of Patterns and Change.” Journal of Marriage and Family 82(1):9–34. doi: 10.1111/jomf.12612. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/jomf.12612.

March 10

Pandemic fertility

Currie, Janet, and Hannes Schwandt. 2014. “Short- and Long-Term Effects of Unemployment on Fertility.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (41): 14734–39. doi:10.1073/pnas.1408975111.

Luppi, Francesca, Bruno Arpino, and Alessandro Rosina. 2020. “The Impact of COVID-19 on Fertility Plans in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom.” Demographic Research 43(47):1399–1412. doi: 10.4054/DemRes.2020.43.47.

Wilde, Joshua, Wei Chen, and Sophie Lohmann. 2020. COVID-19 and the Future of US Fertility: What Can We Learn from Google? Working Paper. 13776. IZA Discussion Papers. https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/227303

Wagner, Sander, Felix C. Tropf, Nicolo Cavalli, and Melinda C. Mills. 2020. “Pandemics, Public Health Interventions and Fertility: Evidence from the 1918 Influenza.” https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/f3hv8/

March 17

Spring Break

March 24

COVID-19 and race/ethnic inequality

Sweeney, Megan M., and R. Kelly Raley. 2014. “Race, Ethnicity, and the Changing Context of Childbearing in the United States.” Annual Review of Sociology 40:539–58.

Hardy, Bradley L., and Trevon D. Logan. 2020. “Racial Economic Inequality amid the COVID-19 Crisis.” The Hamilton Project, Essay 17:2020. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/EA_HardyLogan_LO_8.12.pdf

Vargas, Edward D., and Gabriel R. Sanchez. 2020. “COVID-19 Is Having a Devastating Impact on the Economic Well-Being of Latino Families.” Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy 3(4):262–69. 10.1007/s41996-020-00071-0.

Snowden, Lonnie R., and Genevieve Graaf. 2021. “COVID-19, Social Determinants Past, Present, and Future, and African Americans’ Health.” Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 8(1):12–20. 10.1007/s40615-020-00923-3.

Reinhart, Eric, and Daniel L. Chen. 2020. “Incarceration and Its Disseminations: COVID-19 Pandemic Lessons From Chicago’s Cook County Jail.” Health Affairs 39(8):1412–18. 10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00652.

March 31

China and fertility policy

Bongaarts, John, and Christophe Z. Guilmoto. 2015. “How Many More Missing Women? Excess Female Mortality and Prenatal Sex Selection, 1970–2050.” Population and Development Review 41 (2): 241–69. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00046.x.

Wang Feng, Baochang Gu, and Yong Cai. 2016. “The End of China’s One-Child Policy.” Studies in Family Planning 47 (1): 83–86. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4465.2016.00052.x.

Shen, Ke, Feng Wang, and Yong Cai. 2020. “Government Policy and Global Fertility Change: A Reappraisal.” Asian Population Studies 16(2):145–66. https://umd.instructure.com/files/60812839/

Wang, Feng. 2017. “Is Rapid Fertility Decline Possible? Lessons from Asia and Emerging Countries.” Pp. 435–51 in Africa’s population: In search of a demographic dividend. Springer. https://umd.instructure.com/files/60848754/

April 7 [SECOND PAPER DUE]

Divorce

Kennedy, Sheela, and Steven Ruggles. 2014. “Breaking Up Is Hard to Count: The Rise of Divorce in the United States, 1980–2010.” Demography 51 (2): 587–98.

Cohen, Philip N. 2019. “The Coming Divorce Decline.” Socius 5:2378023119873497. 10.1177/2378023119873497.

Raley, R. Kelly, and Megan M. Sweeney. 2020. “Divorce, Repartnering, and Stepfamilies: A Decade in Review.” Journal of Marriage and Family 82(1):81–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12651.

April 14

Policy, race, and nonmarital births

England, Paula. 2016. “Sometimes the Social Becomes Personal: Gender, Class, and Sexualities.” American Sociological Review 81 (1): 4–28.

Cohen, Philip N. 2015. “Maternal Age and Infant Mortality for White, Black, and Mexican Mothers in the United States.” Sociological Science 3 (January): 32–38.

Geronimus, Arline T. 2003. “Damned If You Do: Culture, Identity, Privilege, and Teenage Childbearing in the United States.” Social Science & Medicine 57 (5): 881–93.

Cohen, Philip N. 2018. Enduring Bonds: Families and Modern Inequality, Chapter: “Marriage promotion [Excerpts]” 24pp. [to be provided]

Smith, Imari Z., Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards, Salimah El-Amin and William Darity, Jr. “Fighting at Birth: Eradicating the Black-White Infant Mortality Gap.” Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and Insight Center for Community Economic Development. https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Eradicating-Black-Infant-Mortality-March-2018.pdf

April 21

More U.S. inequality issues

Brady, David, Ryan M. Finnigan, and Sabine Hübgen. 2017. “Rethinking the Risks of Poverty: A Framework for Analyzing Prevalences and Penalties.” American Journal of Sociology 123 (3): 740–86. https://doi.org/10.1086/693678.

Enns, Peter K., Youngmin Yi, Megan Comfort, Alyssa W. Goldman, Hedwig Lee, Christopher Muller, Sara Wakefield, Emily A. Wang, and Christopher Wildeman. 2019. “What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated?: Evidence from the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS).” Socius 5:2378023119829332. doi: 10.1177/2378023119829332.

Cooper, Marianne, and Allison J. Pugh. 2020. “Families Across the Income Spectrum: A Decade in Review.” Journal of Marriage and Family 82(1):272–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12623.

April 28

Family structure and child wellbeing

Regnerus, Mark. 2012. “How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.” Social Science Research 41 (4): 752–70. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.03.009.

Rosenfeld, Michael J. 2015. “Revisiting the Data from the New Family Structure Study: Taking Family Instability into Account.” Sociological Science 2 (September): 478–501. doi:10.15195/v2.a23.

Cohen, Philip N. 2018. Enduring Bonds: Families and Modern Inequality, Chapter: “Marriage equality in social science and the courts.” 19pp. [to be provided]

Perkins, Kristin L. 2019. “Changes in Household Composition and Children’s Educational Attainment.” Demography, January. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0757-5.

May 5 [THIRD PAPER DUE]

Maternal mortality

MacDorman, Marian F., Eugene Declercq, and Marie E. Thoma. 2017. “Trends in Maternal Mortality by Socio-Demographic Characteristics and Cause of Death in 27 States and the District of Columbia.” Obstetrics and Gynecology 129 (5): 811–18. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000001968.

MacDorman, Marian F., Eugene Declercq, and Marie E. Thoma. 2018. “Trends in Texas Maternal Mortality by Maternal Age, Race/Ethnicity, and Cause of Death, 2006-2015.” Birth 45 (2): 169–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12330.

McMillan Cottom, Tressie. 2019. “Why Are Pregnant Black Women Viewed as Incompetent?” Time. January 8, 2019. http://time.com/5494404/tressie-mcmillan-cottom-thick-pregnancy-competent/.

Molina, Rose L., and Lydia E. Pace. 2017. “A Renewed Focus on Maternal Health in the United States.” New England Journal of Medicine 377 (18): 1705–7. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1709473.

For reference: World Health Organization. 2014. “Trends in maternal mortality: 1990 to 2013. Estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, The World Bank and the United Nations Population Division.” http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/937281468338969369/pdf/879050PUB0Tren00Box385214B00PUBLIC0.pdf.

New COVID-19 and Health Disparities lecture

I recorded a new version of the lecture I created last spring: COVID-19 and Health Disparities. It defines health disparities, introduces the theory of fundamental causes, and then describes COVID-19 disparities by race/ethnicity and age with reference to education and occupational inequality. For intro sociology students.

Using data from Bureau of Labor Statistics (inspired by this piece from Justin Fox), I showed the percentage of workers working at home according to the median wage in their occupations, illustrating how people in lower-paid occupations aren’t working at home, while professionals and managers are:

And, using age- and race/ethnic-specific mortality rates from CDC, with population denominators from the 2018 ACS (I don’t know why I can’t find the denominators CDC uses), I made this:

The greatest race/ethnic disparities are in the working ages, which suggests they are driven at least partly by occupational inequality.

The lecture 23 minutes, slides with references and links are here.

Race and racism in America (video)

In my Social Problems class we’re spending the next few weeks on race, racial inequality, and racial politics. Step one is this lecture on race and racism.

After a tangent on racial identity, idealism and its enemies, I address biology and race, describing the classic racist racial categories in relation to vast human diversity in Africa and the world overall, with discussion of biological evolution and the sources of human variation. Then I turn to the US and discuss social definition and self-definition, race versus ethnicity, definitions of racism and discrimination, and how the Census Bureau measures US race and ethnicity, before summarizing current and projected race/ethnic composition. And I used the new Zoom feature where your PowerPoint slides are the virtual background (which is harder than it looks because your image isn’t mirrored while you speak!).

It’s 35 minutes. The slides are here, CC-BY: osf.io/uafvp. To see all my videos, visit my YouTube channel.

The COVID-19 economic crisis is increasing every kind of inequality (video)

I recorded a 25-minute lecture on the COVID-19 economic crisis, with emphasis on increasing inequalities, for my Social Problems class. The slides are posted here, CC-BY.

Measuring inequality, and what the Gini index does (video)

I produced a short video on measuring inequality, focusing on the construction of the Gini index, the trend in US family inequality, and an example of using it to measure world inequality. It’s 15 minutes, intended for intro-level sociology students.

I like teaching this not because so many of my students end up calculating and analyzing Gini indexes, but because it’s a readily interpretable example of the value of condensing a lot of numbers down to one useful one — which opens up the possibility of the kind of analysis we want to do (Going up? Going down? What about France? etc.). It also helps introduce the idea that social students of inequality are systematic and scientific, and fun for people who like math, too.

The video is below, or you can watch it (along with my other videos) on YouTube. The slides are available here, including one I left out of the video, briefly discussing Corrado Gini and his bad (fascist, eugenicist) politics. Comments welcome.

Demographic facts your students need to know right now (with COVID-19 addendum)

PN Cohen photo / Flickr CC: https://flic.kr/p/2jw6stF

Here’s the 2020 update of a series I started in 2013. This year, after the basic facts, I’ll add some pandemic facts below.

Is it true that “facts are useless in an emergency“? I guess we’ll find out this year. Knowing basic demographic facts, and how to do arithmetic, lets us ballpark the claims we are exposed to all the time. The idea is to get your radar tuned to identify falsehoods as efficiently as possible, to prevent them spreading and contaminating reality. Although I grew up on “facts are lazy and facts are late,” I actually still believe in this mission, I just shake my head slowly while I ramble on about it (and tell the same stories over and over).

It started a few years ago with the idea that the undergraduate students in my class should know the size of the US population. Not to exaggerate the problem, but too many of them don’t, at least when they reach my sophomore level family sociology class. If you don’t know that fact, how can you interpret statements like, “The U.S. economy lost a record 20.5 million jobs in April“?

Everyone likes a number that appears to support their perspective. But that’s no way to run (or change) a society. The trick is to know the facts before you create or evaluate an argument, and for that you need some foundational demographic knowledge. This list of facts you should know is just a prompt to get started in that direction.

These are demographic facts you need just to get through the day without being grossly misled or misinformed — or, in the case of journalists or teachers or social scientists, not to allow your audience to be grossly misled or misinformed. Not trivia that makes a point or statistics that are shocking, but the non-sensational information you need to make sense of those things when other people use them. And it’s really a ballpark requirement (when I test the undergraduates, I give them credit if they are within 20% of the US population — that’s anywhere between 264 million and 396 million!).

This is only a few dozen facts, not exhaustive but they belong on any top-100 list. Feel free to add your facts in the comments (as per policy, first-time commenters are moderated). They are rounded to reasonable units for easy memorization. All refer to the US unless otherwise noted. Most of the links will take you to the latest data:

	Number	Source
World Population	7.7 billion	1
U.S. Population	330 million	1
Children under 18 as share of pop.	22%	2
Adults 65+ as share of pop.	17%	2
Official unemployment rate (July 2020)	10%	3
Unemployment rate range, 1970-2018	3.9% – 15%	3
Labor force participation rate, age 16+	61%	9
Labor force participation rate range, 1970-2017	60% – 67%	9
Non-Hispanic Whites as share of pop.	60%	2
Blacks as share of pop.	13%	2
Hispanics as share of pop.	19%	2
Asians / Pacific Islanders as share of pop.	6%	2
American Indians as share of pop.	1%	2
Immigrants as share of pop	14%	2
Adults age 25+ with BA or higher	32%	2
Median household income	$60,300	2
Total poverty rate	12%	8
Child poverty rate	16%	8
Poverty rate age 65+	10%	8
Most populous country, China	1.4 billion	5
2nd most populous country, India	1.3 billion	5
3rd most populous country, USA	327 million	5
4th most populous country, Indonesia	261 million	5
5th most populous country, Brazil	207 million	5
U.S. male life expectancy at birth	76	6
U.S. female life expectancy at birth	81	6
Life expectancy range across countries	51 – 85	7
World total fertility rate	2.4	10
U.S. total fertility rate	1.7	10
Total fertility rate range across countries	1.0 – 6.9	10

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau Population Clock

2. U.S. Census Bureau quick facts

3. Bureau of Labor Statistics

5. CIA World Factbook

6. National Center for Health Statistics

7. CIA World Factbook

8. U.S. Census Bureau poverty tables

9. Bureau of Labor Statistics

10. World Bank

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COVID-19 Addendum: 21 more facts

The pandemic is changing everything. A lot of the numbers above may look different next year. Here are 21 basic pandemic facts to keep in mind — again, the point is to get a sense of scale, to inform your consumption of the daily flow of information (and disinformation). These are changing, too, but they are current as of August 31, 2020.

Global confirmed COVID-19 cases: 25 million

Confirmed US COVID-19 cases: 6 million

Second most COVID-19 cases: Brazil, 3.9 million

Third most COVID-19 cases: India, 3.6 million

Global confirmed COVID-19 deaths: 850,000

Confirmed US COVID-19 deaths: 183,000

Second most COVID-19 deaths: Brazil, 121, 000

Third most COVID-19 deaths: India: 65,000

Percent of U.S. COVID patients who have died: 3%

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 Americans: 50

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 non-Hispanic Whites: 43

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 Blacks: 81

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 Hispanics: 55

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 Americans over age 65: 400

Annual deaths in the U.S. (these are for 2017): Total, 2.8 million

Leading cause of death: Heart disease, 650,000

Second leading cause: Cancer: 600,000

Third leading cause: Accidents: 160,000

Deaths from flu and pneumonia, 56,000

Deaths from suicide: 47,000

Deaths from homicide: 20,000

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Sources

COVID-19 country data: Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center

U.S. cause of death data: Centers for Disease Control

U.S. age and race/ethnicity COVID-19 death data: Centers for Disease Control

 

 

Pandemic Social Problems, with video and partial reading list

PN Cohen photo / CC-BY / https://flic.kr/p/2jw5juv

With a lecture and reading list, almost ready to start class.

Almost 6 months ago, on March 2, I had an informal COVID-19 debriefing with 50 students in my Social Problems class. Some of what I said came true, and I’m glad (sort of?) none of it was completely wrong (though we didn’t actually hit 100 million worldwide confirmed cases in May). For a reality check I go back to this Twitter thread, where I jotted down what I told them:

Today in my Social Problems class, with about 50 students, I opened the floor to questions about Coronavirus. As a scientifically-literate person who reads the news, I felt responsible answering some of their many questions. (If I'm wrong feel free to tell me and I'll tell them)

— Philip N Cohen (@familyunequal) March 3, 2020

Now, as I prepare to teach the course online next week, I have updated my overview lecture, which has grown to 40 minutes.

Beyond some fundamentals, I’m tossing out the traditional Social Problems course outline and just doing the pandemic and related issues this semester, so this is the introductory lecture. I expect to record some more lectures. If I decide they’re not too embarrassing to share I’ll put them on my YouTube channel (which you can apparently subscribe to if you want to be notified of the videos). Feel free to use them for whatever you like, and pass along your feedback.

The course doesn’t start till next week, so I don’t have everything together yet, but I have a lot of readings, some for me and some for the students, which I’m sharing below.

Happy to have more suggestions, too.

Illness

• Yong, Ed. 2020. “Long-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19.” The Atlantic, August 19, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/long-haulers-covid-19-recognition-support-groups-symptoms/615382/.

The 1918 Flu pandemic

• Barry, John M. 2017. “How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America.” Smithsonian Magazine. (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/).
• Roberts, Jennifer D., and Shadi O. Tehrani. 2020. “Environments, Behaviors, and Inequalities: Reflecting on the Impacts of the Influenza and Coronavirus Pandemics in the United States.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17 (12): 4484. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17124484.
• Gamble, Vanessa Northington. 2010. “‘There Wasn’t a Lot of Comforts in Those Days:’ African Americans, Public Health, and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic.” Public Health Reports 125 (3_suppl): 113–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/00333549101250S314.

Race and Ethnic Disparities 

• Hammonds, Evelynn M., and Susan M. Reverby. 2019. “Toward a Historically Informed Analysis of Racial Health Disparities Since 1619.” American Journal of Public Health 109 (10): 1348–49. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305262.
• Hogarth, Rana Asali. 2019. “The Myth of Innate Racial Differences Between White and Black People’s Bodies: Lessons From the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” American Journal of Public Health 109 (10): 1339–41. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305245.
• Egede, Leonard E., and Rebekah J. Walker. 2020. “Structural Racism, Social Risk Factors, and Covid-19 — A Dangerous Convergence for Black Americans.” New England Journal of Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp2023616.
• Bobrow, Emily. 2020. “She Was Pregnant With Twins During Covid. Why Did Only One Survive?” New York Times, August 6, 2020, sec. New York. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/nyregion/childbirth-Covid-Black-mothers.html.
• COVD race/ethnicity data: https://covidtracking.com/race/dashboard
• Moore, Jazmyn T., Jessica N. Ricaldi, and Charles E. Rose. 2020. “Disparities in Incidence of COVID-19 Among Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Groups in Counties Identified as Hotspots During June 5–18, 2020 — 22 States, February–June 2020.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 69. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6933e1.
• Kim, Lindsay, Michael Whitaker, and Alissa O’Halloran. 2020. “Hospitalization Rates and Characteristics of Children Aged 18 Years Hospitalized with Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 — COVID-NET, 14 States, March 1–July 25, 2020.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 69. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6932e3.

Families

• Lindberg, Laura D., VandeVusse, Alicia, Mueller, Jennifer, and Kirstein, Marielle. 2020. “Early Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from the 2020 Guttmacher Survey of Reproductive Health Experiences.” Guttmacher Institute. https://www.guttmacher.org/report/early-impacts-covid-19-pandemic-findings-2020-guttmacher-survey-reproductive-health.
• Herd, Toria, and et al. 2020. “Mitigating the Risk for Child Maltreatment in the COVID-19 Context.” Policy Brief. Research-to-Policy Collaboration. https://www.research2policy.org/covid19-policy-brief-child-maltreat.
• Usher, Kim, Navjot Bhullar, Joanne Durkin, Naomi Gyamfi, and Debra Jackson. 2020. “Family Violence and COVID-19: Increased Vulnerability and Reduced Options for Support.” International Journal of Mental Health Nursing 29 (4): 549–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12735.

Economic crisis and inequality

• Bokun, Anna, and et al. 2020. “The Unequal Impact of COVID-19 on Children’s Economic Vulnerability.” EconoFact (blog). July 14, 2020. https://econofact.org/the-unequal-impact-of-covid-19-on-childrens-economic-vulnerability.
• Denham, Hannah, and Taylor Telford. 2020. “Debt, Eviction and Hunger: Millions Fall Back into Crisis as Stimulus and Safety Nets Vanish.” Washington Post. August 23. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/23/economy-federal-benefits-low-wage-workers/.
• Kofman, Ava, and Hannah Fresques. 2020. “Black Workers Are More Likely to Be Unemployed but Less Likely to Get Unemployment Benefits.” ProPublica, August 24. https://www.propublica.org/article/black-workers-are-more-likely-to-be-unemployed-but-less-likely-to-get-unemployment-benefits.

Gender and the lockdown

• Collins, Caitlyn, Liana Christin Landivar, Leah Ruppanner, and William J. Scarborough. 2020. “COVID-19 and the Gender Gap in Work Hours.” Gender, Work & Organization. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12506.
• Landivar, Liana Christin, Leah Ruppanner, William J. Scarborough, and Caitlyn Collins. 2020. “Early Signs Indicate That COVID-19 Is Exacerbating Gender Inequality in the Labor Force.” Socius 6: 2378023120947997. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023120947997.
• Grose, Jessica. 2020. “‘They Go to Mommy First.’” New York Times, July 15, 2020, sec. Parenting. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/parenting/working-moms-coronavirus.html.
• Perelman, Deb. 2020. “In the Covid-19 Economy, You Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Can’t Have Both.” New York Times, July 2, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/business/covid-economy-parents-kids-career-homeschooling.html.
• Tappe, Anneken. 2020. “Working Mothers Are Quitting to Take Care of Their Kids, and the US Job Market May Never Be the Same.” CNN, August 19, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/19/economy/women-quitting-work-child-care/index.html.
• Carrazana, Chabeli. 2020. “Coronavirus Pandemic Creates America’s First Female Recession amid Child Care, Unemployment Woes.” USA TODAY, August 3, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/08/03/coronavirus-pandemic-sets-women-back-amid-unemployment-child-care-crisis/5573123002/.
• Carlson, Daniel L., Richard Petts, and Joanna R. Pepin. 2020. “US Couples’ Divisions of Housework and Childcare during COVID-19 Pandemic.” Preprint. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/jy8fn.

Government response

• Fallows, James. 2020. “The 3 Weeks That Changed Everything.” The Atlantic, June 29, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/how-white-house-coronavirus-response-went-wrong/613591/.
• Shear, Michael D., Noah Weiland, Eric Lipton, Maggie Haberman, and David E. Sanger. 2020. “Inside Trump’s Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus.” New York Times, July 18, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-failure-leadership.html.
• Jr, Cleve R. Wootson, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Lori Rozsa, and Josh Dawsey. 2020. “Coronavirus Ravaged Florida, as Ron DeSantis Sidelined Scientists and Followed Trump.” Washington Post, July 25, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-ravaged-florida-as-ron-desantis-sidelined-scientists-and-followed-trump/2020/07/25/0b8008da-c648-11ea-b037-f9711f89ee46_story.html.
• Yong, Ed. 2020. “How the Pandemic Defeated America.” The Atlantic, August 4, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/.

Anti-Asian racism

• Donaghue, Erin. 2020. “2,120 Hate Incidents against Asian Americans Reported during Coronavirus Pandemic.” CBS News, July 2, 2020. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anti-asian-american-hate-incidents-up-racism/.
• Little, Becky. 2020. “Trump’s ‘Chinese’ Virus Is Part of a Long History of Blaming Other Countries for Disease.” Time, March 20, 2020. https://time.com/5807376/virus-name-foreign-history/.
• Rogin, Ali, and Amna Nawaz. 2020. “‘We Have Been through This before.’ Why Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Are Rising amid Coronavirus.” PBS NewsHour, June 25, 2020, sec. Nation. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/we-have-been-through-this-before-why-anti-asian-hate-crimes-are-rising-amid-coronavirus.

Trusting experts and confirmation bias, videos

• Julia Galef TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/julia_galef_why_you_think_you_re_right_even_if_you_re_wrong
• Why Don’t Americans Trust Experts Anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V50HMNB4qX4
• COVID-19 Disinformation: How to Spot It: https://youtu.be/3Pt64454zPg

 

Inequality, family change, and the pandemic (interview with Joanna Pepin)

Joanna Pepin was kind enough to interview me for her family sociology class (she’s just begun a new job at the University at Buffalo). We talked about why family sociology attracted me as an inequality researcher, what’s changed in modern families, some common misperceptions, what’s new the forthcoming edition of my textbook, and what COVID-19 is likely to mean for people and their families. In 11 minutes.

I hope it helps.

 

My green screen teaching setup explained

Janine Barchas, a professor of English who sells advice on “curating your material environment and adjusting the visible setting of your at-home office” for $250 per chat, managed to place a (paywalled) article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which I haven’t read. But I did see people complaining on twitter about her advice that you “should curate your zoom backdrop.” Including this funny spoof from Andrew Ishak:

There was other followup advice, like this:

If you are white and male enough to own an expensive, new, and highly performing computer, you can opt for a virtual background. Several colleagues poignantly use photos of their now-vacant classrooms or offices. But not everyone has an up-to-date computer. Even for those who do, hours of flickering like a TV weather announcer in front of a greenscreen projection of the Grand Canyon or of your college campus can prove distracting, too. You might consider selling some of your Apple stock to purchase a top of the line machine, but only if you make sure to mention its purchase at the start of every meeting. After all, what use is having expensive things if you can’t constantly bring them up to others?

(I don’t know who wrote that, but it was shared here.)

All that said, I spend hours and hours in online video meetings, and I’m preparing to teach for hours and hours on Zoom. I want to feel like I’m doing a good job, and also maybe enjoy my job a little. I don’t want to decorate my living space to show students and colleagues in the background, I want a nice green screen setup to put me somewhere else. With under $300 and 4 x 6 feet of space, I found this was possible.

So, without telling anyone what they should do, or even implying that they should do something, this is a 4-minute explanation of how I got to be satisfied, on the very relative scale of our current “situation,” with my Zoom self for teaching. If it’s helpful, great. If you get pleasure from mocking me for it, you’re welcome.

Good luck this semester!

Families, inequality, and sociology in pandemic times (video)

This fall I will be recording video lectures for students in my undergrad class. I’m thinking about the technical aspects, but also the voice and posture. Sitting at my desk at home is quite different from my lecture hall (I usually get a few thousand steps during an hour class). We’ll have to see how it goes.

In June I had a chance to do a one-hour consulting with a “major corporation” to talk about what’s happening in the world, which I recorded and rewrote into this post. I just did another one on the subject of modern families and inequality. This one was like an interview, where I answered questions. I transcribed some of my answers, and then edited that text, figuring it might give me a nice blend of formal and conversational voice, which might work in a video.

After recording the video, I went back and added in some graphics using Photoshop as my video editor (did you know we can get Photoshop as part of our university site license?). A much quicker and easier way, which I assume I’ll be reduced to in the fall, is just to record the lecture live using Zoom or some other PowerPoint screen recorder. Anyway, here is the result, in 12 minutes.

Note: The video includes an update to data from this post on weddings in Florida, and this report on the impact of the epidemic on reproductive health experiences, from Laura Lindberg and colleagues at Guttmacher.