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

In recent months, populist politics appealing to deep-seated nationalist sentiments have risen to prominence in American public discourse. This trend has been primarily reflected in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, but its echoes can also be found in the rhetoric of other Republican presidential candidates. Political scientists, journalists, and politicians have been caught off guard by this seemingly sudden shift in U.S. political discourse and its resonance with a large plurality of voters in the Republican primary. Yet, similar developments have been unfolding in European politics for over a decade, as evidenced by the rise of the radical right in France, the Netherlands, Greece, and many other EU countries.... Read more about Populist Politics and Nationalist Beliefs in Contemporary Democracies

Jonathan Mijs received a travel award named for Alan C. Kerckhoff in recognition of his paper,... Read more about Jonathan Mijs receives Kerckhoff Travel Award

Paul Chang contributed to the Stanford University Press blog on the Polarization of South Korea. A more in-depth account of South Korea's democracy movement in the 1970s can be found in Chang's new book, Protest Dialectics: State Repression and South Korea's Democracy Movement, 1970-...

On June 4 to 6, 2014, Michèle Lamont delivered the Adorno Lectures on the topic of Worlds of Worth: Cultural Processes of Inequality, at the Institut für Sozialforschung at the Johannes Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She will be conférencière invitée sur chaire d’Etat at the Collège de France in May 2015, where she will deliver these same lectures over four weeks. These lectures (in preparation for publication in German, French and English) offer an overview of her far-reaching research agenda.... Read more about Worlds of Worth: Cultural Processes of Inequality

Jocelyn Viterna and Judge Isaac Borenstein (visiting professor at Suffolk Law School) were interviewed on December 9th by Emily Rooney on Greater Boston and Beat the Press about the recent national protests and whether social movements can effect change.  Listen to the full interview here:  "Can Social Movements Invoke Change."  Photo credit:  Shunella Grace Lumas/Harvard Crimson.

Why are so many young people in certain regions of the postindustrial world delaying marriage and children, or not moving forward at all on either front?  Southern European and East Asian countries now universally have birth rates that are far below what is required to naturally replace their populations. This is leading to rapid population aging and the specter of lowered economic productivity. To unravel the reasons behind historically unprecedented low birth rates, Mary Brinton (Reischauer Institute Professor of Sociology) is leading a team of international collaborators in a five-country comparative study of gender equality and fertility.... Read more about Explaining Low Fertility in Postindustrial Societies

Congratulations to Jocelyn Viterna whose book Women in War: The micro-processes of mobilization in El Salvador (Oxford University Press, 2013) is the winner of the Mirra Komarovksy Book Award for 2015.... Read more about Women in War receives Komarovksy Book Award