[VIRTUAL] Tethered Lives: Parenthood, Partnership, and Gender Inequality in the United States
 

Harvard Professor Sasha Killewald will talk about the relationships among work, family and money.
 

Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2022 at 6:00 - 7:00pm ET 

Location: Virtual via Zoom
 

Professor Killewald will present findings from her research showing how parenthood affects men’s and women’s careers in unequal ways. She will also discuss how dynamics within couples constrain the work-family options available to both men and women and suggest policies that may loosen these constraints.  There will be an opportunity for discussion.  
 

Alexandra (Sasha) Killewald is Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. She uses quantitative methods to study inequality in the contemporary United States, with a focus on the relationships among work, family, and money. In one line of research, Killewald investigates the gendered intersection of work and family. She takes on questions such as: How does marriage and parenthood affect wages? How do wives’ earnings shape their time in housework? What employment patterns do mothers experience? How are work and money associated with couples’ risk of divorce? A recurring theme in her findings is the persistence of the male breadwinner norm, in contrast to substantial variation in women’s work-family combinations. 

In a second line of research, Killewald analyzes how wealth inequality persists across generations and the role of intergenerational processes in the racial wealth gap. She shows that offspring and parents tend to have similar wealth positions and that racial disparities in social origins contribute substantially to the racial wealth gap. At the same time, she finds that racial disparities in wealth persist even among those who start life with similar parental resources, suggesting that the racial wealth gap cannot be reduced to class alone.
 

Fee:

Harvard Members and their Guests: Free

Nonmembers: $15.00