Research
I study how gender and family transitions (re)produce labor market inequality and work opportunities, including labor force participation, hiring outcomes, stereotypes and bias, and wages and salary.
I have two main lines of work. First, I uncover essential theoretical and empirical processes related to gender and racial discrimination in hiring processes. In my dissertation, I focus on how perceptions around future childbearing risk shape stereotypes and hiring, as well as the role of organizations in reproducing inequalities. Second, I study how family transitions shape labor market trajectories and outcomes and how this relationship varies by gender. Throughout my work, I apply an intersectional lens to account for the variation that exists across different dimensions of inequality like race and ethnicity, and social class.
I combine these substantive interests with novel data collection and use a range of methods—including experimental methods, computational methods, quantitative survey analyses, and qualitative interviews to examine important theoretical processes and understand potential mechanisms to inequality.
Gender and Work over the Life Course
Publications
"Changes in work and care trajectories during the transition to motherhood", published in Social Science Research.
“Labor Force Participation Over the Life Course: The Long-Term Effects of Employment Trajectories on Wages and the Gender Wage Gap,” with Kate Weisshaar, published in Demography.
Featured in media outlets: "The Society Pages" and "The Conversation".
"Complexity in Employment and Coresidential Trajectories Among (Dis)Advantaged Social Groups in Chile", with Ignacio Cabib, published in Social Forces.
Discrimination in the Labor Market
Publications
"Hiring Discrimination Under Pressures to Diversify: Gender, Race, and Diversity Commodification across Job Transitions in Software Engineering”, with Kate Weisshaar and Koji Chavez, published in American Sociological Review.
“Gender and Racial Discrimination in Hiring Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from a Field Experiment of Accountants, 2018-2020," with Koji Chavez and Kate Weisshaar, published in Work & Occupations.
Ongoing Projects
A New Dimension of the Motherhood Penalty: Perceptions of Future Childbearing Risk. While we know that mothers, compared to childless women, experience labor market penalties, I argue we are missing how women are perceived in terms of their future childbearing risk. In my dissertation, I examine this novel theoretical concept using three empirical studies in the United States.
Gender and Racial Discrimination in Hiring. With Drs. Kate Weisshaar and Koji Chavez, we conducted a large-scale audit correspondence study to analyze how discrimination changes across job levels and job-applicant skill matching.