inequality

Clippings | October 27th, 2025 | TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on October 27, 2025

The New York Times ran a story on the removal or design changes of public benches as a part of a “decades-long shift of reinventing the public bench into something that doesn’t welcome the public at all.” Michael Benediktsson (Associate Professor of Sociology at Hunter College) commented that this trend connects to pre-1970s anit-vagrancy laws that allowed police officers to arrest people of color and people experiencing homelessness who were utilizing public spaces. Benediktsson commented that once these laws were deemed unconstitutional, “that’s when you see more of a turn to hostile urban design and planning as a means of achieving the same objective.”

Michael Benediktsson

Ash Watson (Scientia Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney) described the consequences of the digital divide in Australia in an NewsCop article. Nearly “6 million Australians have difficulty accessing the internet; this spans physical access, affording the internet and being confident and capable with their own abilities,” Watson described. As more services–including banking, news, housing applications, and government services–move online, many Australians are getting left behind. “The big consequence is that people can struggle to fully participate and feel that they don’t belong in Australian society as a result,” Watson said.

Ash Watson

The Atlantic ran a story addressing a “surprisingly contentious” question: does money make parenting easier? In 2023 a Pew Research Center survey found that lower-income parents were more likely to state that they found parenting enjoyable and rewarding most of the time. Many media commentators focused on this singular data point, claiming that parenting was most difficult for wealthier parents (despite another finding in the Pew data that lower-income parents are more likely to say that parenting is stressful). Jennifer Glass (Sociology Professor at the University of Texas at Austin) commented that “there’s simply no data on mental health, subjective well-being, or happiness that I have ever seen showing [that wealthy parents struggle with parenthood more].” Rather, Glass’s research shows that higher income and education improve happiness for parents.

Jennifer Glass

Equal Times interviewed Alex Wood (Assistant Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Cambridge) on the rise in self-employment and freelance work since 2000. Wood explains that freelancing is often more common where there are weaker labor protections, service-based economies, and digital labor platforms available. Wood also describes a shift in the corporate mindset toward prioritizing short-term profit: “If you leave it to employers, to firms, they will choose the low road, the easy option, because they are focused on short-term profitability and short-term share price, even though that’s detrimental to them in the long term.”

Alex Wood

The Washington Post ran an article about shifting trends in cosmetic surgery–particularly a rise in breast implant removals and breast implants of smaller sizes, mirroring a broader cultural trend toward thinness. Alka Menon (Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yale University) explained that “cosmetic surgery moves on a trend model. Minimalism is the name of the game now.” Menon also commented on how social media accelerates cycles of beauty trends: “What took decades to shift from Marilyn Monroe to Kate Moss now happens in a few years. The algorithm determines what version of beauty you’re exposed to.”

Alka Menon

Clippings | September 16th, 2025 | TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on September 16, 2025

Wisconsin Public Radio interviewed Allison Daminger (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) about her new book, What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life. The book examines how partners split “cognitive labor”, or, the mental effort that goes into running a household. This includes “anticipating issues, identifying options, making decisions and monitoring the results.” While most couples in the study aimed for a 50/50 split of household labor, Daminger found that cognitive labor was typically imbalanced. Among heterosexual couples, women tend to take on more cognitive labor.

Allison Daminger

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University. Ruth Braunstein (Associate Professor of Sociology at John Hopkins University) appeared on WUSA9 to discuss the broader pattern of political violence in the United States. Braunstein commented that political violence has a “tremendous chilling effect on people’s willingness to go into political life, to stand up and speak out for what they believe in.” She also discussed how distrust in political institutions may lead some individuals to violence, which can further erode trust in insituions–a “vicious cycle.” Braunstein also expressed concern to the New York Times that Kirk’s murder could mobilize right-wing groups (including militia organizations): “All it will take is the slightest hint from the political leaders, including the president, but also anyone else, that this is the moment that they’re needed.”

Ruth Braunstein

Laura Garbes (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota) wrote an op-ed for the Minnesota Star Tribune discussing how ‘elitism’ in public media stems from a lack of public funding. “Due to decades of budget cuts led by Republican administrations, public radio has become reliant on a set of mostly white, affluent donors for its financial survival,” Garbes explains. Programming, then, is catered to donor-listeners, leaving behind working-class audiences.

Laura Garbes

Protests are sweeping across France as a part of the Block Everything Movement–a campaign driven by anger over major cuts to public spending. The movement began online among right-wing voices, but has since been embraced by the political left. Quentin Ravelli (Sociologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research) discussed the movement’s lack of a clear political identity in an RFI article: “Many movements avoid being labelled left or right. This isn’t just strategic: participants often feel that consensus around economic demands matter more than political allegiance. Urgent issues like public services, wages or inflation are seen as priorities.” The movement is drawing comparisons to the 2018 Yellow Vest Movement. Antoine Bristelle (Sociologist at the Jean Jaures Foundation) commented on the demographic differences to The Gazette: “In the ‘Yellow Vest’ movement, we had a rather vulnerable France that was struggling to make ends meet, a lot of workers, a lot of retirees. Whereas here, in terms of age, it’s many young people [that have] a certain vision of the world where there is more social justice, less inequality and a political system that functions differently, better,” Bristielle said.

Quentin Ravelli

Clippings | April 14th, 2025 | TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on April 14, 2025

The New York Times ran a story on shifts in the residential construction industry since the Great Recession. Contracting work has become a “race-to-the-bottom,” with many contractors competing on price by increasingly relying on subcontractors or dodging expenses by misclassifying full-time employees as independent contractors. “There’s always been subcontracting in the construction industry, but it was largely done to licensed trades,” Tom Juravich (Professor of Sociology at University of Massachusetts – Amherst) explained. “The general contractor hired most of the workers directly, and the only things that weren’t done by the G.C. were electrical, plumbing and so on. But as this new model emerged, what they began to do was spin off much of the work.” This shift preceded the industry’s reliance on labor from undocumented immigrants. A study by Juravich and colleagues found that “the entrance of immigrants did not result in the deterioration of jobs in residential construction. Rather, working conditions and pay became so bad that subcontractors faced continual labor shortages.”

Tom Juravich

Christian Smith’s (Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame) new book, Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, explores the various cultural changes that have made organized religion less relevant in many people’s lives. “We almost always use the word ‘decline’ when we talk about if things aren’t going well for religion,” Smith explained. “And decline is a good word. But what it’s descriptive of is organizational matters and individual religiousness. Organizations can have decline in membership or adherence, attendance, financial giving. That’s decline — it’s measurable.” Instead, Smith describes traditional organized religion as “culturally obsolete” (meaning that religion can be useful and important for some people, but has lost relevance for a large portion of Americans). This story was covered by the Religion News Service, and picked up by The Salt Lake Tribune. 

Christian Smith

In an opinion piece for the New York Times, several experts across scholarly disciplines weighed in on a key question following the presidential election: why did Trump win a Republican-record setting 46% of the Hispanic vote, despite his xenophobic and racist comments about migrant and minority groups? Paul Starr (Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton) commented that “Hispanics are part of the swing vote of the American racial order, not just electorally but in their identification with the white mainstream.” In a recent paper, Starr and colleagues found that only about 45% of Hispanic people identify as “people of color.” Nancy Foner (Professor of Sociology at Hunter College) commented that long-time U.S. residents may resent new asylum seekers: “In cities like New York, where the new arrivals were bused in large numbers, some Hispanics resented the added burdens on the city, as well as on institutions like schools in their own communities, to provide housing and other services to the newest arrivals.” Starr and Foner also highlighted that Trump appealed to some Hispanic voters on the basis of conservative cultural values (particularly related to gender).

Paul Starr and Nancy Foner

GQ ran an article about luxury skiing and the surge in private ski clubs for the ultra-wealthy. The article references Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West, a book by Justin Farrell (Professor of Sociology at the Yale School of the Environment). Farrell examines how the ultra-wealthy buy up land in Western states and accrue wealth while emulating the rural working poor. “If you’re there, you see it very clearly,” said Farrell. “The way that this culture is romanticized but not supported.”

Justin Farrell

Arlie Russell Hochschild (Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California – Berkeley) appeared on Nonviolence Radio, a podcast by the Metta Center for Nonviolence, to discuss how emotions shape political identity and polarization. Hochschild argues that, listening to the emotional narratives of the political right, we can identify a four step anti-shaming ritual that Trump provides: 1) Trump says something transgressive, 2) Democrats shame him for the transgressive statement, 3) Trump becomes a victim and relates to his followers: “Isn’t that familiar? Like they’re beating up on you, too. Doesn’t it feel terrible to be shamed like that and put down and victimized? And I am taking the shame from you, off of your shoulders, and taking it upon myself. I’m the victim here. I’m the fall guy on your behalf,” and 4) there is a roar back from Trump’s followers. Hochschild notes that Democrats focus on steps one and two (the shaming and blaming cycle), while Republicans are focused on steps three and four (getting retribution for a perceived injury).

Arlie Russell Hochschild

Clippings | March 24th, 2025 | TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on March 24, 2025

Jessica Calarco (Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin) was interviewed by Salon on the difficulties that progressives face when building political coalitions. While the right–unified by a rejection of governmental solutions–can often agree to block new government programs, the left faces the difficult task of agreeing on what government solutions to pursue. “One thing I always tell my students is that, at least from a sociological perspective, causes imply solutions. When we are looking to solve social problems, first we have to agree that a problem exists,” Calarco stated. “Next they have to agree on where the problem is coming from. Those different understandings point to different possible policy solutions.”

Jessica Calarco

The New York Times ran a story on Trump’s cuts to staff and funding in the Department of Education. Philip N. Cohen (Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland) commented on how the data collected by the DOE is crucial for not only research on school performance, but also for research on the state of labor markets, the economy, and inequalities in America. “This is bedrock, base-line information for how our society is functioning,” Cohen stated. “It’s a common language — a shared reality we all have.”

Philip N. Cohen

Boom! Lawyered (a Rewire News Group podcast) interviewed David S. Cohen (Professor of Law at Drexel University) and Carole Joffe (Sociologist and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), based at the University of California, San Francisco) about their new book After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe But Not Abortion. Cohen and Joffe discussed potential risks to abortion access and the importance of supporting abortion care advocates. “How come since Dobbs, when everybody expected disaster, the number of abortions actually has risen slightly? Not a lot, but it has risen,” Joffe said. “One big answer to that question is […] the phenomenal networks of people helping people get to abortions. The other answer to that question is the huge influx of money that happened right after Dobbs. The expression often used is rage spending. People were so angry about Dobbs they just gave a ton of money to local funds, to the National Abortion Federation, to Planned Parenthood, to a local clinic.”

David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe

Michael Elliot (Professor of Sociology at Towson University) wrote an article for The Conversation on the sacred nature of Comic-Con for dedicated fans. Elliot describes how, beyond entertainment and escapism, comic-con culture provides fans with a “source of principles” to guide behavior, community and fellowship, and sanctuary (Comic-con “provides space for fans to be themselves, helps them cope with personal struggles, and inspires hope.”).

Michael Elliot

Clippings – December 9th, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on December 9, 2024
  • Arlie Russell Hochschild (Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley) appeared on Next Question with Katie Couric, discussing her book Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right. The book describes how residents of Pikeville, KY, a small city where 80% of 2016 voters supported Donald Trump, felt a pervasive sense of economic loss and why Trump’s messages resonated with them. In response to the 2024 election, Hochschild comments: “I feel like America is now living with two denials. There’s the denial of the Democratic side of America that is [] really denying what a big sector of America that has faced tremendous loss and has lost faith in the government’s response to that… But there’s a denial on the Right side of the aisle. Republicans that may have voted for a man for one reason—the border, the price of gas. But we are facing, I think, a danger to democracy and I think there is a discounting and a denial of that on the Right side of America.” Stolen Pride was recently recognized by the New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2024.
  • On Dec. 3rd, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, prompting widespread protests. He rescinded the decision six hours later. Gi-Wook Shin (Professor of Sociology and Director of the Asia-Pacific Research Center and Korean Studies Program at Stanford University) described the decision as a “surprising last-ditch move by Yoon to grab political power” amid low approval ratings. Shin appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, discussing the future of democracy in Korea: “I think for a short term, there will be a lot of uncertainties and maybe instability in politics and society, maybe even in the economy. But in the long run, I think Korea has strong democratic institutions… And I remain optimistic, especially that such a move like martial law, you know, failed, you know, quite badly and very quickly.”
  • The New York Times ran an opinion piece featuring Allison Pugh’s (Professor of Sociology at John Hopkins University) new book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. Pugh’s work reveals how technology––particularly artificial intelligence–has permeated work that requires “connective labor” and how “being able to have a human attend to your needs has become a luxury good.” However, Pugh commented that a dystopian future is not inevitable despite advances in interactive AI, because “humans lose interest in interacting with machines after a while, partly because of machine predictability.”
  • The Ink ran an article featuring Musa Al-Gharbi’s (Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University) new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. “One of the key arguments of the book,” Al-Gharbi explains, “is that in many respects — and somewhat troublingly, from my perspective – social justice discourse is increasingly used by symbolic capitalists [elites who are committed to social justice], by the winners and the prevailing order of people who have been succeeding and flourishing, to justify inequalities. People who are losing, and suffering, and getting left behind, who feel like their values and interests are not reflected in our institutions, we [symbolic capitalists] point to those people and say, Good. They deserve to be marginalized. They deserve to be ignored. And we do this in the name of social justice. We use social justice, in many cases, to legitimize inequalities.”
  • Danielle Lindemann (Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University) was quoted in an Epic Stream article about what reality television reveals about our culture. Lindemann argues that reality TV provides a reflection of real-life people and social problems (like inequalities based on race, class, gender, or sexuality): “For all of its extreme personalities and outlandish premises, reality TV reflects how regressive we truly are.”

Clippings – October 21st, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on October 21, 2024
  • Roger Southall (Professor of Sociology at the University of Witwatersrand) wrote an article for The Conversation on poverty and inequality in South Africa. According to recent polls, 60% of South Africans think that the government of national unity is working well and there has been a recent upturn in the economy. However, while the unity government’s policies may reduce poverty, Southall warns that they may not address class inequalities. “Unless its benefits become socially inclusive, it might well collapse.”
  • The New York Times ran a story on governmental efforts to increase fertility rates in wealthy countries around the world. Kumiko Nemoto (Professor of Business Administration at Senshu University) and Ylva Moberg (Researcher at the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University) commented on gender, childcare and work in Japan and Sweden, respectively. In a study of Japanese women in executive or managerial positions, Nemoto found that the women were either childless or relied on their parents or child care services. “Almost all of these women said their husbands did not help them,” Nemoto said. In 1995, Sweden introduced paternity leave policies to encourage men to take on more childcare responsibilities. “That has created a change in cultural expectations on what it means to be a good father,” Moeberg said. However, fertility rates in both countries remain low.
  • Scott Scheiman (Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto) wrote an article for The Conversation, asking: will Kamala Harris’s pro-work message resonate in an age of “anti-ambition” rhetoric? Scheiman examines data from the General Social Survey (GSS) about sentiments about work. While, compared to the late 80s, fewer Americans today think ambition and hard work are essential or important for getting ahead in life, “sweeping sociological claims that we’re living in an age of anti-ambition and that most people are quiet quitting simply aren’t justified.” However, Scheiman notes that “economic pessimism remains entrenched despite objective evidence to the contrary. Harris may therefore have her work cut out for her in selling an “opportunity economy” message as election day draws closer.”
  • Eve Ewing (Sociologist and Professor of Race, Diaspora, and Indegeneity at the University of Chicago) moderated a discussion with Ta-Nehisi Coates (Author of The Message) and Rami Nashashibi (MacArthur Fellow and Founder of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network) at the Chicago Humanities Festival. Ewing asked the panel about how oppressed groups turn to nationalism as a response to loss and displacement. Coates stated that nationalistic attitudes “must necessarily come at the expense of another people. It’s just no way around that.” This story was covered by The TRiiBE.

Clippings – September 30th, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on September 30, 2024
  • Blake R. Silver’s (Associate Professor of Sociology at George Mason University) new book, Degrees of Risk: Navigating Insecurity and Inequality in Public Higher Education, examines the ways in which colleges and universities create uncertainty for students. In an interview with The Conversation, Silver describes that many universities experiencing funding cuts create flexible programming and offer a range of optional resources. “Though abundant choices and flexibility may seem broadly appealing, research shows that they can make it difficult to anticipate next steps, and it’s easy for students to get lost,” Silver explains. “This most directly impacts students whose families are less familiar with navigating college and those with few economic resources to recover from missteps.”
  • GW Today interviewed Elizabeth Vaquera (Associate Professor of Sociology at George Washington University) about how Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are appealing to Latino voters in the upcoming election. Vaquera explains that we very rarely see politicians considering the diversity of Latino populations and focusing solely on immigration is a poor strategy to win Latino votes. “For Latino voters, it’s not all about immigration. The majority of Latinos in the United States are not even immigrants themselves,” Vaquera notes. “They are worried about the same issues as everybody else. The economy is always at the top of their concerns. Jobs, education and health care are all very important to them. Abortion has become a singular issue for some in the Latino community.”
  • Brooke Harrington (Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College) appeared on C-SPAN to discuss offshore finance, a system in which countries “sell secrecy to very rich people,” allowing them to protect assets and/or hide money from tax authorities. Harrington describes how many nations that are struggling financially (especially smaller island nations that were with a history of colonization) participate in the global finance system as a way to boost their economies. However, offshore finance tends to end up “undermining democracy and ultimately hollowing out the economy of these countries.” Harrington’s recent book, Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism, explores this system in-depth.
  • The New York Times ran a story on the emerging support of moderate republican lawmakers from labor unions. Jake Rosenfeld (Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis) commented that recent pro-worker rhetoric from prominent Republicans (including former President Trump) “might be giving cover to more down-ballot Republicans” to adopt pro-union stances. “Ten or 15 years ago, if you staked out a real pro-union position as a G.O.P. lawmaker, you were going to be hearing from the Chamber of Commerce or the National Association of Manufacturers,” Rosenfeld explained.
  • Parker Muzzerall (PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of British Columbia) wrote an article for The Conversation about oil and gas workers’ responses to Canada’s efforts to achieve a net-zero energy economy. Muzzerall’s work reveals that many oil and gas workers have a strong sense of regional pride for oil and gas communities and believe that “the federal government and Canadians in other parts of the country do not care about them and their feelings of being excluded from Canada’s vision for the future.” 
  • Ryan Larson (Assistant Professor of Criminology at Hamline University) appeared on MPR to discuss new research on the mental health effects of the police murder of George Floyd on Minneapolis residents. The study found that Black residents had more negative mental health consequences than White and Latino residents. “Often in epidemiological studies, advantage, say, wealth or socioeconomic status will often serve as a buffer against health problems,” Larson explained. However, in this case, “Black residents living in the most disadvantaged as well as the most advantaged spaces in Minneapolis both saw a pretty similar increase in mental health diagnoses across the city.”

Clippings – March 5th, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on March 5, 2024
  • The Cut interviewed Gretchen Sisson (Sociologist at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California San Francisco) about her new book Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, which highlights experiences of birthmothers in the adoption industry. Sisson describes how many birthmothers want to become parents, but participate in adoption for financial reasons: “We have to understand adoption largely as a product of inequity and poverty, and that is a fundamental understanding that we just don’t have in this country,” Sisson says.
  • Eric Klinenberg (Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU) appeared on Plain English with Derek Thompson to discuss the “hanging out crisis” (the decline in face-to-face interactions), the importance of social infrastructure, and why “aloneness isn’t always loneliness.”
  • Robert Bullard (Distinguished Professor and Director of the Robert D. Bullard Center for Climate and Environmental Justice at Texas Southern University) appeared on Living on Earth to discuss how an elevated highway has caused destructive flooding in Shiloh, Alabama. “This is one of the worst cases of environmental racism that I have seen in the 40 years that I’ve worked on this. … If you look at the damage that has been caused over the last six years, you can see the drainage systems are pointed like cannons into the community. It’s almost as if the state is saying “We want you out of here. And if you don’t leave, we’re gonna drown you. We’re gonna drive you out.” Bullard discussed how pollution, vulnerabilities to climate change, and vulnerabilities to harmful infrastructure are racially segregated. This story was picked up by Inside Climate News.

Clippings – October 30th TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on October 30, 2023
  • In response to excerpts from Britney Spears’ upcoming memoir that revealed she had an abortion, USA Today ran a story on how access to abortion care benefits male partners. The article quotes Bethany Everett (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Utah): “Abortion is a highly stigmatized form of healthcare, and women almost always bear the brunt of the stigma and shame around abortion. Yet, there are likely many people, including male partners, who don’t want to become parents or have another child, who also benefit from abortion access — benefits that are rarely recognized by the broader public or policymakers.” 
  • Daniel Jaffee (Associate Professor of Sociology at Portland State University) wrote an article for The Conversation discussing the role of bottled water as a stopgap solution to natural or human-made drinking-water crises. Jaffee notes that “communities can end up relying on bottled water – often at great expense – for years after a crisis” and that existing inequalities are worsened by placing the costs on individuals. Jaffee recently published Unbottled: The Fight against Plastic Water and for Water Justice.
  • LeanIn.org and McKinsey released the annual Women in the Workplace report, which claimed that the “broken rung” – rather than the “glass ceiling” – is the biggest barrier to women’s advancement. Within the metaphor of careers as ladder, the “broken rung” occurs at the beginning of corporate careers, between entry level positions and managerial positions. “The thing that’s important to understand about the broken rung is that those people at that stage of career are earlier in their career, so they don’t have a really big track record,” explained sociologist Marianne Cooper (co-author of the report and Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University’s VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab). “Men are getting it on potential, whereas women are held to a higher standard of performance[.]” This story was covered by Human Resources Director.
  • A recent study by Katie Spoon (PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder) and colleagues revealed that “workplace climate/atmosphere” was the most common reason that women leave academic positions (over both professional reasons and work-life balance). Compared to men, women were 44% more likely to feel pushed out of academia. Kimberlee Shauman (Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis) commented that the study provides a rare picture of trends in the overall academic field, rather than focusing on individual institutions. This story was covered by Nature.

Clippings – October 9th TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on October 9, 2023
  • ABC’s new season of The Bachelor centers around a 72-year-old “Golden Bachelor.” Deborah Carr (Professor of Sociology at Boston University) wrote an opinion piece for CNN on what dynamics we may see unfold over the season based on her expertise on aging. Carr anticipates that: 1) discussions of health will be important bonding moments, as managing health is salient in older adults’ lives; 2) family approval of the relationship will be crucial, as older adults are often merging two families in romantic relationships; and 3) marriage may be less of a focus, as increasing numbers of older adults are cohabitating or “living apart together.” To learn more on this subject, read a recent TSP Discovery on Older Adults on the Dating Market.
  • The New York Times featured new research from Nick Graetz (Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Princeton University Eviction Lab), Carl Gershenson (Project Director at the Princeton University Eviction Lab), Peter Hepburn (Assistant Professor at Rutgers University), Matthew Desmond (Professor of Sociology at Princeton University), and additional colleagues from the Census Bureau. The study found that children – particularly children under 5 – are disproportionately affected by eviction filings. The article suggests that both the financial effect of having young children and discrimination from landlords (who often see children as an unwanted risk) contribute to this trend.  “When I started writing about these issues, I kind of thought kids would shield families from eviction,” Desmond commented. “But they expose families to eviction.”
  • David Roediger (Historian and Professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas) wrote a piece for Mother Jones on the “mirage of the middle class.” Referencing C. Wright Mills’ work on the new middle classes of the 1950s, Roediger discusses how the imprecision of the term “middle class” is mobilized by politicians in election seasons.
  • For Hispanic Heritage Month, Mark Hugo Lopez (Director of Race and Ethnicity at the Pew Research Center) and Christina Mora (Associate Professor of Sociology at Berkeley) appeared on PBS News to discuss the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” and how identity language has shifted over time. Mora discussed the push from Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban populations in the 1960s/70s to get the United States to establish a panethnic census category. Lopez discussed how Latino adults use country of origin terms in discussing their identities.
  • Aarushi Bhandari (Assistant Professor of Sociology at Davidson College) wrote an article for The Conversation, reflecting on how news of the strike-ending deal between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers was eclipsed by celebrity headlines. Six conglomerates own 90% of media outlets, giving them significant power over media narratives. Bhandari argues that the limited coverage of the WGA deal “fits into a longer historical pattern of tension between labor movements and corporate media” in which “corporate media has framed disproportionately negative narratives about strikes and union activities.”