As of today, Diversityland is officially out! It’s exciting/terrifying/relieving to let the book you spent years writing out into the world. I’m so deeply grateful for the village of people that helped me make it to this point.
Joel Mittleman
@joeljm.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Sociology at Penn. Studying gender, education, ML and LGBTQ+ populations. He/him. https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/people/joel-mittleman
This is a soon to be classic graph.
What’s happened to income-group gaps in parental spending on children in the U.S.? For the last 45 years, they just. keep. getting. wider. In a new @socarxiv.bsky.social working paper, I present updated evidence on trends in spending on childcare, education, and extracurricular activities.
Wow, I didn't expect our paper on iPhones and fertility to generate this much buzz—thanks for all the feedback! Rather than scattershot replies, here's a compilation of thoughts and new robustness checks. 🧵1/15
Three things said about AI and social science: it's a topic to study, a thing to critique, a tool to use. My new Daedalus essay argues these aren't three conversations; they're one. A 🧵 on "Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object, and Tool." www.amacad.org/publication/...
Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object & Tool
Uses of advanced artificial intelligence are changing how societies organize labor, govern, produce knowledge, and make meaning. In light of these developments, this essay argues that AI models, tools...
amacad.org
👋 Meet the Sociological Science Accelerator (SSA), a network for collaborative experimental sociology. Members propose research ideas 💡, the community votes 🗳️to select projects, and winning studies run across multiple labs/online using shared protocols. experimentalsociology.github.io
Sociological Science Accelerator
The Sociological Science Accelerator coordinates rigorous, reproducible experimental sociology across a global network.
experimentalsociology.github.io
On this day in 1946, Claudia Goldin was born. In 2023, she became the first woman to win a solo Nobel in economics. In 2026, she helped the players’ union for the Women’s National Basketball Association negotiate a nearly 400% raise by demonstrating that the women were woefully underpaid. #WeTheMen
What can we learn from automating an entire quantitative social science paper, from prompt to finished product? Thread about ongoing work with @natewilmers.bsky.social 1/12 Paper: osf.io/preprints/so...
📣New Article Alert📣 How is gender and sexuality institutionalized in higher education? Using longitudinal data collected on a national probability sample, this study examines whether and when HEIs establish LGBTQ resource centers and studies programs. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #SOE
Contested Diversity? The Institutionalization of LGBTQ-Supportive Features in U.S. Higher Education, 1980 to 2018 - Hannah K. D’Apice, Christine Min Wotipka, 2026
This study seeks to understand the extent of and explanations for the institutionalization of sexuality and gender identity in U.S. higher education institution...
journals.sagepub.com
25 years ago, marriage equality wasn't a possibility. Today, it's the law, thanks, in part, to research by the Williams Institute. Our studies & expertise informed policymakers & courts that turned a movement into a right, now embraced by hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples across the country.
Our research shows that LGBT people who underwent conversion therapy have a greater risk of suicidality, with double the odds of suicidal ideation, 75% higher odds of planning a suicide, and 88% increased odds of attempting suicide. tinyurl.com/WIChilesamicus @usatoday.com: tinyurl.com/29r8sjym
Proud to have "Nonbinary Gender Economics" out in JPE Micro. We document the economic experiences and preferences of nonbinary individuals—a population of 1M+ in the US that is often overlooked.
Oh hello it's Trans Day of Visibility and, like many trans people, I'm only visible if I say something. If you think you don't know anyone trans, you probably do. If you want to read my post about how I understand my gender, it's at daniellaurison.com/n...
My latest article is online now at American Sociological Review: “Kinship Interlocks.” It’s about how some elite families manage to stay rich and powerful for many generations while others don’t. 🧵 (1/16)
Kinship Interlocks: How the Intimate Exchange of Wealth, Status, and Power Generates Upper-Class Persistence - Shay O’Brien, 2026
How do some families manage to entrench themselves in the upper class for many generations while others do not? Bringing together economic sociology, political ...
journals.sagepub.com
One of the more engaging citations I’ve received in awhile. Kinship Interlocks: How the Intimate Exchange of Wealth, Status, and Power Generates Upper-Class Persistence By Shay O’Briena in ASR journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
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journals.sagepub.com
"all fortunes are family fortunes, all power is family power, and all status is family status" That's a powerful line
One of the more engaging citations I’ve received in awhile. Kinship Interlocks: How the Intimate Exchange of Wealth, Status, and Power Generates Upper-Class Persistence By Shay O’Briena in ASR journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
1/ Safe travels to all heading to @aefpweb.bsky.social 2026! There are so many awesome panels this year. If you have time, please drop by the paper (2.13) & poster session where my PhD advisees present new work we're super excited for about immigrant-origin youth and their acculturation in the US.
Excited to see Aven Peters' innovative & rigorous study of embodiment and trans identification out in the latest AJS. Aven's study adds an essential new piece to our understanding of contemporary population patterns of trans identification and announces @avenpeters.bsky.social as a major new talent.
Just tremendous work by Jen to expose the waste of taxpayer dollars on unallowable expenses under the state's Education Savings Account laws (and the seeming awareness and coverup efforts from the the state department of education).
🧵 Arizona Ed said it analyzed a random sample of 3K ESA transactions & concluded 1.9% of ESA $ unallowable. TLDR: 🫠They did not draw a random sample 🫠Either ADE lied or made a very basic error 🫠Focusing on unallowed misses big picture; too many low-ROI for human capital items are allowed 1/10
We're recruiting a new cohort of postdocs focusing on health disparities research for our NIH-funded T32. pophealth.wisc.edu/health-dispa... Interested candidates should feel free to reach out!
Health Disparities Research Scholars
OUR VISION The goal of the HDRS Postdoctoral Fellowship Training Program is to foster training opportunities for the next generation of investigators within health disparities research, with a focus o...
pophealth.wisc.edu
Great coverage of new work by my colleague Nick Graetz (and collaborators) showing the extent of credit score-based home insurance pricing. Pricing insurance by credit score is a proxy for pricing it by poverty. (Minnesota friends, note the two local examples)
How Rising Home Insurance Costs Are Linked to Your Credit History
In many states, homeowners with “excellent” credit scores are charged less for home insurance than those with worse scores, even if they live in a disaster-prone area.
nytimes.com
This administration's policies on data are so twisted that *People Magazine* is covering it now.
Trump Administration Is Scrubbing LGBTQ+ Questions from Federal Surveys. Here's Why It Matters people.com/trump-admini...
Reminder! First review date is Feb. 28 - just two days from now.
📢 Predoc Opportunity I'm hiring a full-time predoc to work with me at UC Berkeley, supporting my research on labor economics, the economics of education, and public policy. jesse-rothstein.com/rothstein_pr... Please pass on to anyone who might be interested. #econsky #econ_ra
I am so excited to be part of this incredible group of incoming Russell Sage Foundation @russellsagefdn.bsky.social Visiting Scholars.
Since so many of us are inside & online, it's auspicious the final book cover just came in.
Happy to share our new paper published in PNAS! Using epigenetic clocks and egocentric network data, we find each additional "hassler" in your close social network is associated with ~9 months of extra biological age and 1.5% faster pace of aging.
New Postdoctoral Research Associate positions at @Princeton's Office of Population Research!
VERSION 2.0 of the Segregation Tracking Project is here! New data on racial and economic segregation between neighborhoods and schools over the last 30+ years for every school district, metro area, state, county, congressional district (new!), and more! edopportunity.org/segregation/
The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford | The Segregation Tracking Project
Use our visualizations to explore educational opportunity in your school & community.
edopportunity.org