Families and Social Inequality

3 units

Families have changed dramatically in recent decades in the United States. Dual-earner families, single parents, cohabiting families, and blended families are now common in the contemporary family landscape. The prevalence of increasingly diverse and complex family configurations varies substantially by social class, race and ethnicity, and gender. Men's and women's work and family lives have also become more similar over time, but gender inequalities in child care remain significant. Drawing on insights from sociology, demography, and economics, this course aims to understand the causes and consequences of social inequalities in family life. The course focuses primarily on the contemporary U.S. context, but also explores historical and cross-national variation in families. The course also considers the role of social policy in affecting inequalities. No prerequisite.