Lawrence M. Berger

I am Associate Vice Chancellor for Research in the Social Sciences, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the School of Social Work, and former Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research focuses on the ways in which sociodemographic characteristics, and public policies affect child and family wellbeing. I have engaged in studies in: (1) exploring relationships among socioeconomic factors (family structure and composition, economic resources), parentings, children’s development and wellbeing; (2) assessing the impacts of public policies on parental behaviors, and child and family wellbeing. To address these topics, I utilize a variety of advanced statistical techniques to analyze data from a range of large-scale datasets. My work aims to inform public policy in order to improve its capacity to assist families in accessing resources, improving family functioning and child wellbeing. My research is most closely related to CDE’s research areas of Fertility, Families and Households and the Demography of Inequality, and I serve on the CDE Executive Committee.

CDE Research Area Affiliations:

Demography of Inequality; Fertility, Families, and Households

Selected Publications:

Kim, Yoona, Lawrence M. Berger, and Daniel R. Meyer. “Lower-Income Nonresident Fathers’ Self-Perceptions About Their Parenting Quality and Relationships With Children.” Journal of Family Issues 45, no. 8 (2024): 1897-1924.

Berger, Lawrence M., Meta Brown, J. Michael Collins, Rachel E. Dwyer, Jason N. Houle, Stephanie Moulton, Davon Norris, and Alec P. Rhodes. “Inequality in high-cost borrowing and unemployment insurance generosity in US states during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Nature Human Behaviour (2024): 1-13.

Haapanen, Mari, Quentin H. Riser, Judith Bartfeld, Lawrence M. Berger, Mia Hakovirta, Daniel R. Meyer, and Anneli Miettinen. “Sharing care and sharing costs? Child support and child-related expense-sharing post-separation in Finland and Wisconsin, US.” Children and Youth Services Review 162 (2024): 107676.

Berger, Lawrence M., Christine Durrance, Deborah Ehrenthal, HeeJin Kim, Hsiang-Hui Kuo, and Jessica Pac. “Prenatal opioid exposure by likelihood of exposure and risk to prenatal development: Medicaid-covered births in Wisconsin, 2010–2019.” Science Advances 10, no. 19 (2024): eadg9674.