Health and Population

Scholars of the Health and Population cluster study the sociological causes and consequences of dynamics and differences in aging, migration, fertility, mortality, health, and well-being. We have distinctive expertise in cross-national comparisons, social capital, health inequalities, and cultural analysis.

The Department co-sponsors the Social Demography Seminar.

Affiliated Graduate Students

News related to Health & Population

We are sicker when we live in stingier societies

March 2, 2017

People living in the United States today live lives that are sicker and end earlier than people living in other high-income countries.  The facts are described in two recent reports [https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13497/us-health-in-international-perspective-shorter-lives-poorer-health and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62369/] sponsored by the National Academy of Science. Jason Beckfield has joined sociologists, demographers, and epidemiologists in ongoing efforts to explain the growing US health disadvantage, and he recently published a new study in Social Science & Medicine that shows US life expectancy would be approximately 3-5 years longer if the US were not a social policy laggard.

... Read more about We are sicker when we live in stingier societies

Mary Brinton stands in front of a building on Harvard's Cambridge campus.

Gender Equity and Low Fertility in Postindustrial Societies

May 17, 2016

Progress towards gender equality was substantial on many fronts in the decades leading up to the 1990s. Since then, movement towards gender equality has slowed. The gender wage gap has narrowed at a slower pace in the past 20 years, and the same can be said for occupational sex segregation. Postindustrial societies show variation in these patterns and in the consequences that ensue.... Read more about Gender Equity and Low Fertility in Postindustrial Societies