Selected Funded Research by Theme

Funder: NIH/NICHD
Grant Number: R03HD110827
Principal Investigators: Christine Schwartz, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology
Investigators: Felix Elwert, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology

Summary: This project uses data from the National Survey of Family Growth and the Health and Retirement Study that, when combined, support population-representative estimates of trends in divorce, marital dissolution, and co-residential union dissolution for a wide age range of individuals in the United States. It examines how changes in selection into marriage and population composition have contributed to divorce trends. Results from this research will inform how to interpret the observed divorce decline since the late 1970s and have implications for understanding shifts in children’s family stability, the living arrangements of older adults, increasing socioeconomic differences in family demographic patterns, and their potential effects on health and well-being.

This project focuses on race/ethnicity heterogeneity in intergenerational education mobility to better understand education disparities. The United States has a history of racial and ethnic inequalities in education and recent research further uncovers vast differences in economic opportunities by race/ethnicity. Non-Hispanic Black and Native American/Alaska Native children in particular face the lowest levels of upward economic mobility in the United States. Education is fundamental to health and socioeconomic status throughout the lifecourse and understanding these disparities can help inform socioeconomic inequality more broadly. This project brings an intergenerational mobility lens to the study of education – conceptualizing educational attainment through complementary processes of upward and downward education mobility.

Principal  Investigators: Christine Durrance, University of Wisconsin–Madison, La Follette School of Public Affairs, and Jessica Pac, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused shocks to not only health systems, but also to the economy, financial stability, health insurance, education and childcare. Low-income and minority families have been disproportionately impacted by pandemic impact on employment, income, health insurance and social safety net benefits. Wisconsin children, especially racial and ethnic minorities, may be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of COVID-19. Early reports indicate that critical preventative health and treatment services for mothers and children are being missed, which may negatively affect short and long-term health. Moreover, parental stress and loss of economic resources may influence child maltreatment and safety. This project utilizes unique administrative linked data, Wisconsin Administrative Core Data and Big Data for Little Kids, and several empirical approaches to leverage quasi-experimental timing in county stay-at-home orders and school closures on a number of important health and safety outcomes for mothers and children. 

Principal Investigator: Tiffany Green, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics & Gynecology

Birth Cost Recovery (BCR) holds unmarried, non-custodial fathers liable for Medicaid birth costs in Wisconsin, yet there is little known about the impact of this policy on Black birthing people in Wisconsin. This project, led by Tiffany Green, PhD, assistant professor in the departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics and Gynecology, will work to better understand how BCR and other similar social policies impact inequities in health outcomes among low-income Black birthing people in the state of Wisconsin. Dr. Green and a team of interdisciplinary experts in the fields of economics, population health, pediatrics, social work, clinical/social psychology and community engagement will create an evaluation framework for BCR as a way of measuring the impact of this policy and collect evidence that can be useful in informing future policies and improving health outcomes statewide.

Funder: NSF
Grant Number: 1849297
Principal  Investigator: Michael Light, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology

Immigration enforcement has fundamentally altered the criminal justice system in the United States, yet we still lack information on basic questions regarding noncitizens in the legal system, particularly in state and local jurisdictions. The lack of knowledge on the local criminal processing of immigrants is largely due to data constraints, in that information on foreign-born or legal status is rarely available in most state court databases. This project addresses this limitation by leveraging unique criminal history data from California and Texas – the two largest immigrant destinations in the U.S. – which tracks criminal cases from arrest through sentencing.

Funder: Rockwool Foundation
Investigator: Michael Light, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology

Summary: This project aims to measure the causal effect of deportation on the life chances of the remaining family and social surroundings. For every deported person, several others (family members but also other people within the deported person’s social vicinity) are likely to be affected, which implies that the consequences of deportation may be far-reaching. In addition to affecting many individuals and families, deportation has grown into a mass phenomenon since the turn of the century, which makes it all the more important to identify the effects of this policy. Yet, because of a lack of causal research designs, whether the consequences are good or bad is unknown—and the causal effects could indeed go in either direction. Existing correlational studies seem to agree that consequences may be predominantly negative.

Funder: NICHD
Grant Number: 1R01HD103356-01A1
Principal Investigator: Lawrence Berger, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work
Investigators: Jennifer Dykema, University of Wisconsin Survey Center
Jason Houle, Dartmouth College, Department of Sociology

Summary: In recent decades, individual and household debt has played an increasingly important role in the dynamics of economic inequality and insecurity in the United States. However, limitations of current data impede scientific understanding of the role of indebtedness in reducing or exacerbating economic insecurity for low-income families. This project consists of a multi-pronged data collection and analysis effort aimed at building a stronger data infrastructure, more adequate and accurate measures of indebtedness, and best practices for analyzing various forms of indebtedness and their relation to economic hardship and financial strain for low-income families.

Funder: NICHD
Grant Number: 1R03HD103866-01A1
Principal Investigator: Monica Grant, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology

Summary: This project explores a set of complementary analyses focused on the reproductive consequences of schooling expansion for men. Using secondary data from the Demographic and Health Surveys, Grant will explore how boys’ schooling expansion is related to shifting reproductive and attitudinal norms. She will also examine how shifts in the educational composition of husbands and wives over time is associated with reproductive outcomes and couples’ decision-making. These analyses will contribute to the overall understanding of how education influences demographic behavior and the changing contributions of men’s and women’s schooling to reproductive outcomes over time.

Funder: National Science Foundation
Grant Number: 2041304
Principal Investigator: Max Besbris, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology

Summary: There is considerable urban residential segregation in the United States by race, ethnicity, and social class, with implications for community formation and inequality, as well as school segregation. We know that the majority of urban home-seekers in the United States now use the internet as their primary source to find new places to live. Despite this development, we know relatively little regarding how renters select their housing at a time when information about available housing is increasingly moving online. While this technological transformation has largely gone unexamined, some prior research shows that advertisements for rental housing are not all the same; rather, they differ systematically depending on the demographics of the neighborhood where the housing being advertised is located. This project analyzes rental housing advertisements posted online to investigate if these differences matter for people during their housing search. Understanding how individuals interpret the information they see in the online housing market is key to explaining why people move to certain places and not others, which has implications for the future of residential inequality and racial/ethnic segregation. The findings will advance understanding of residential selection processes and aid policy makers looking to expand and equalize access to information for home-seekers, with implications for improved social and economic well-being in urban areas.

Funder: NIH/NICHD
Grant Number: R21HD108171 
Principal Investigator: Barbara Wolfe, University of Wisconsin–Madison, La Follette School of Public Affairs

Summary: Child poverty is a multi-determined complex problem with well-documented correlations to profound and enduring negative effects on health and behaviors across the lifespan. Critically, there are substantial gaps in scientific understanding of neurobehavioral mechanisms linking poverty to these outcomes, making it difficult to tailor effective interventions to youth at risk. This project addresses this significant public health issue by testing the effectiveness of an existing anti-poverty program, subsidized housing, on the neural correlates of decision-making and cognitive-control in youths. The general aim of the proposal is to assess whether receipt of stable housing in childhood can attenuate deficits in cognitive processes contributing to poorer academic outcomes and health-related behaviors. The project aims to determine whether means-tested public programs, namely public housing and housing voucher programs, moderate maladaptive judgment and decision-making and examine whether stable housing in childhood is related to longer-term outcomes such as increased academic performance and reduced risk-taking behavior in early adolescence.

Funder: NIH/NICHD
Grant Number: R01HD103356
Principal Investigator: Lawrence Berger, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work

Summary: Individual and household debt plays an increasingly important role in the dynamics of inequality in the United States. However, current data limitations impede scientific understanding of the role of indebtedness in reducing or exacerbating economic insecurity. Without better data, scientific analyses of population health and wellbeing may understate and misidentify crucial sources of economic insecurity and disadvantage, as well as reciprocal effects of debt with poverty, health, and family functioning. This project consists of a multi-pronged data collection and analysis effort to build a stronger data infrastructure, more adequate and accurate measures of indebtedness, and best practices for analyzing various forms of indebtedness and their relation to economic hardship and financial strain for low-income families.

Funder: NIH/NICHD
Grant Number: R03HD109552
Principal Investigator: Katie M Jajtner, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Center for Financial Security & Retirement and Disability Research Center, & Yang Wang, University of Wisconsin–Madison, La Follette School of Public Affairs

Summary: This project will provide the first estimates of whether, and to what degree, public policy can meaningfully disrupt the persistence of poor health and health disparities across generations. We focus attention on the effect of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on intergenerational health mobility as the EITC is one of the largest and possibly most effective anti-poverty programs in the United States (US). Health could be a unique characteristic subjected to clear genetic influences that would naturally persist across generations; however, research clearly identifies non-genetic components in intergenerational health persistence that opens the door to public policy feasibly ameliorating health opportunity. Because the EITC’s impacts and/or intergenerational health mobility is patterned by marital status, sex, and race/ethnicity, we also examine whether the EITC disproportionately affects health mobility for disadvantaged groups and investigate optimal timing of benefit receipt in childhood. Results could provide actionable pathways for federal and state policymakers evaluating EITC costs and benefits to effectively reduce inequities in opportunity.

Funder: NIA
Grant Number: R01AG078533
Principal Investigator: Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology

Summary: Education is among the most important determinants of later-life cognitive functioning and biological markers of AD/ADRD risk. However, we know very little about how, why, or for whom education matters for these cognitive outcomes. This project brings together an established and interdisciplinary team of neurologists, neuropsychologists, sociologists, education scientists, survey methodologists, biostatisticians, and neuroimaging experts who will re- contact surviving members the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS-72). NLS-72 is a nationally representative and highly diverse random sample of Americans first interviewed as high school seniors in 1972. The resulting data—which will be securely released to the wider scientific community during the project period— will be used to conduct transformative analyses of the effects of educational contexts, opportunities, and outcomes on risk of AD/ADRD as observed in cognitive assessments, blood-based markers of neuropathology, and neuroimaging. The analyses made possible by the newly collected data will transform our understanding of how and why education and other early life factors impact AD/ADRD risk and resilience.

Funder: Various private and federal agencies, including NICHD
Principal Investigators: Katherine Magnuson, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work
Kimberly Noble, Columbia University, Teachers College
Qualitative Sub-Study Principal Investigator: Sarah Halpern-Meekin, University of Wisconsin–Madison, School of Human Ecology

Summary: Baby’s First Years is the first study in the United States to assess the impact of poverty reduction on family life and infant and toddlers’ cognitive, emotional, and brain development. One thousand low-income mothers and their newborns were recruited in several ethnically and geographically diverse communities. Mothers receive either (1) $333 each month ($4,000 each year), or (2) $20 each month ($240 each year), for the first 40 months of the children’s lives with the first payments occurring shortly after the baby’s birth. To understand how poverty reduction affects children’s development and family life, quantitative data will be collected on or around the children’s first, second, and third birthdays. Each wave of data collection will capture:

• Aspects of family life hypothesized to be affected by poverty, including parent stress, family expenditures, family routines, parents’ time use and parenting practices, and child care arrangements.
• Children’s development, as well as their physical health, stress, and behavior.

Funder: NICHD
Grant Number: 1R21HD105361-01
Principal Investigators: Jenna Nobles, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology
Florencia Torche, Stanford University, Department of Sociology
Investigators: Felix Elwert, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology

Summary: Uses state-level birth records with early release, researchers will estimate the effects of COVID-19 on birth outcomes at the population level, over time, and across groups defined by different sources of disadvantage. The research team focuses on six states that provide large and diverse samples in areas in which the pandemic unfolded with significant variation: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. With this data, the researchers will:

• Estimate the effect of local-level exposure to COVID-19 on birth outcomes, including intrauterine growth restriction, birthweight, and delivery complications;
• Test for differences in COVID-19 effects on birth outcomes by maternal age, race, nativity, economic disadvantage, and pre-pandemic, local-level economic conditions and health care infrastructure; and
• Model the change in the number and composition of women giving birth as a result of COVID-19 exposure.

Using this information, the researchers will adjust estimates of COVID-19 effects on infant health, while also providing the earliest evidence of COVID effects on population fertility. The research identifies communities and subpopulations in which the pandemic has had the largest impact, and in which lasting effects for the next generation may unfold.

Funder: CORE
Principal Investigators: Christine Durrance, University of Wisconsin–Madison, La Follette School of Public Affairs, & Yang Wang, University of Wisconsin–Madison, La Follette School of Public Affairs,
Investigators: Barbara Wolfe, University of Wisconsin–Madison, La Follette School of Public Affairs

Summary: This project will investigate the unintended effects of restrictive state abortion laws about mandatory waiting periods on the prevalence of intimate partner violence, intimate partner homicide, and the degree to which families are involved in the child welfare system – bridging a prominent gap in the existing research literature. This work is part of an effort to build a rigorous evidence base regarding the broader impacts of abortion restrictions on individual and family health and wellbeing.

Funder: CORE
Principal Investigators: Tiffany Green, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics & Gynecology

Summary: Racial and ethnic variation exists in abortion method prevalence and preferences but is largely unstudied. This mixed-method research project will identify how reproductive-aged Black people value the abortion method relative to other care attributes and the structural and legal barriers that can shape those preferences. The research team will utilize a national dataset to capture the experience of Midwestern Black people, who experience uniquely high levels of socioeconomic inequality and wide state-level variation in barriers to abortion.