Judith Seltzer

Judith Seltzer

Research Professor

Office: 212A Haines Hall

Email: seltzerj@ucla.edu

Phone: 310-825-5646

Curriculum Vitae


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Biography

I study inequality within and between families.

My research interests include kinship patterns, intergenerational obligations, relationships between nonresident fathers and children, and how legal institutions and other policies affect family change. I am especially interested in kinship institutions that are in flux, such as marriage and cohabitation in the contemporary United States or divorced and non-marital families. I also explore ways to improve the quality of survey data on families. In 2013 my colleagues and I added a module with family rosters to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to provide new data on U.S. family networks. My teaching focuses on family and kinship and on population-related topics.  I am currently a member of the Committee on National Statistics of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. I am a past president of the Population Association of America and have held elected offices in the American Sociological Association’s sections on family (which I chaired) and population.

Degrees

Ph. D., University of Michigan

Publications

“Doubling up when times are tough: A study of obligations to share a home in response to economic hardship,” (with Lau and Bianchi). Social Science Research, 41, 1307-1309, 2012.

“Demographic change and parent-child relationships in adulthood,” (with Bianchi). Annual Review of Sociology, 39, 275-90, 2013.

“Coresidence and geographic proximity of mothers and adult children in stepfamilies,” (with Yahirun and Bianchi). Journal of Marriage and Family, 75(5), 1164-80, 2013.

“Parent-child relationships at the transition to adulthood: A comparison of immigrant and native-born youth,” (with Hardie), Social Forces, 95(1), 321-353, 2016.

“Stepfamily structure and transfers between generations in U.S. families,” (with Wiemers, Schoeni, Hotz, and Bianchi). Demography, 2019.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0740-1 (shareable: https://rdcu.be/bZckU)

“The family safety net of black and white multigenerational families,” (with Park and Wiemers). Population and Development Review, 2019.  https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12233

“Family change and changing family demography,” Demography, 2019.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-019-00766-6 (shareable: https://rdcu.be/bZchL)

“Spatial distance between parents and adult children in the United States,” (with Choi, Schoeni, Wiemers, and Hotz). Journal of Marriage and Family, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12606

“Disparities in vulnerability to complications from COVID-19 arising from disparities in preexisting conditions in the United States,” (with Wiemers, Abrahams, AlFakhri, Hotz, and Schoeni). Research in Social Stratification and Social Mobility, 2020.