Monica Grant

About

My research examines how gender inequality in adult attainment is structured by specific early life course transitions linked to schooling, sexual initiation, and family formation. I have investigated these processes in a number of populations, but my recent work focuses on how they unfold in Sub-Saharan Africa.  My research focuses on three sub-areas: (1) the intersection of education and adolescent reproductive health, (2) the expansion of education in less developed countries, particularly gender and socioeconomic inequalities in schooling access and attainment, and (3) the role of family structure in governing early life course transitions.

These interests have led to my most recent projects, which have focused separately on fertility and union dissolution among adolescents and young adults in Malawi. My current research in progress focuses on young women’s experiences of divorce during the transition to adulthood and women’s post-divorce material well-being. Taken as a whole, my research examines the dimensions of inequality and vulnerability that shape opportunities during the transition to adulthood in highly resource constrained countries.

CDE research theme area affiliations

Demography of Inequality; Spatial and Environmental Demography

Selected Publications

Grant, Monica J. “De Facto Privatization and Inequalities in Educational Opportunity in the Transition to Secondary School in Rural Malawi.” Social Forces 96, no. 1 (2017): 65-90. PubMed Central ID 5589344.

Grant, Monica J. “The Demographic Promise of Expanded Female Education: Trends in the Age at First Birth in Malawi.” Population and Development Review 41, no. 3 (2015): 409-38. PubMed Central ID 4857891.

Mensch, Barbara S., Erica Soler-Hampejsek, Christine A. Kelly, Paul C. Hewett, and Monica J. Grant. “Challenges in Measuring the Sequencing of Life Events among Adolescents in Malawi: A Cautionary Note.” Demography 51, no. 1 (2014): 277-85. PubMed Central ID 4175924.

Grant, Monica J., and Erica Soler-Hampejsek. “Hiv Risk Perceptions, the Transition to Marriage, and Divorce in Southern Malawi.” Studies in Family Planning 45, no. 3 (2014): 315-37. PubMed Central ID 4285452.

Grant, Monica J., and Sara Yeatman. “The Impact of Family Transitions on Child Fostering in Rural Malawi.” Demography 51, no. 1 (2014): 205-28. PubMed Central ID 3951709.