Kelly Musick

Professor of Public Policy and Sociology, Senior Associate Dean of Research Link

Faculty Affiliate, Center for Aging and Policy Studies

CAPS Biography:

My research contributes to the two signature themes of CAPS in (1) health and well-being and (2) family and intergenerational supports. It further engages with the three cross-cutting themes on policy, place, and specific populations. It is centrally concerned with changes in the family and the well-being of parents and children over the life course, with a focus on the gendered costs of caregiving and vulnerabilities among low-income families. Much of my work takes a comparative perspective to leverage differences in institutional and policy contexts across countries and U.S. states to assess their role in shaping family processes and support, and it underscores the implications of a weak public infrastructure of care, particularly for women’s employment and financial security. Drawing on my interdisciplinary training in sociology, demography, and public policy, I have published widely on related topics in leading U.S. and international journals in population, sociology, and family studies. My work with scholars from multiple fields has been funded by NICHD, NIA, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Swedish Research Council. My research has consistently addressed differences in family and intergenerational support across subgroups of the population, as defined by gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. In recent work, I integrate structural approaches to understanding how inequality shapes family formation strategies, linking systemic gender inequality measured at the level of U.S. states and schools to early childbearing.