Duc Hien Nguyen

Title: Three Essays on the Economics of Genders and Sexualities

Committee: Lee Badgett (Chairperson), Katherine Moos, Joya Misra

• This dissertation centers the fluidity and conceptual richness of genders and sexualities in our economic life and in the economic literature. By using both quantitative and qualitative methods, I demonstrate that the labor market and the economy looks radically different from the perspective of gender and sexual minorities. Our understanding about the complexity and fluidity of gender and sexual identity has rapidly evolved in the last two decades, and it is time for economists to incorporate this new knowledge into our research framework, starting with collecting new data and creating new variable
• In the first chapter, I argue that heteronormativity plays a critical role in the social reproduction of capital and capitalist subjects. Under neoliberalism, progress for some queer subjects is achieved by assimilating into heteronormative institutions, but subjects who are unwilling or unable to assimilate continue to face exclusion and discrimination.
• My second chapter explores how gender norms in the care economy are strongly linked to white, middle-class femininity. Using data from AddHealth, I show evidence of 2 heterogenous association between femininity and working in care occupation. Increasing femininity is correlated with an increase in the likelihood of being a care worker.
• In the third chapter, using an innovative experimental design, I investigate discrimination based on masculine and feminine gender expression for entry-level care service occupations. Using data collected from my experiment, I find that after controlling for workers’ characteristics and human capitals, Asian and Black workers receive significantly higher interview rates than White workers. However, there are meaningful differences based on gender expression, and the effects have same order of magnitude as having one additional year of experience.

• “Access to Gender-Affirming Care and Transgender Mental Health: Evidence from Medicaid Coverage.” Forthcoming. American Journal of Health Economics. (Co-authored with Samuel Mann and Travis Campbell)
• “Hormone Therapy, Suicidal Risk, and Transgender Youth in the U.S.” 2023. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 113: 551–555. (Co-authored with Samuel Mann, Travis Campbell, and Yana van der Muelen Rodgers)
  • Press Release: University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • Media Coverage: The Advocate, WWLP, MassLive
• “The Political Economy of Heteronormativity.” 2023. Review of Radical Political Economics, 55 (1): 112-131.
• Book Review of “Critical Perspectives in Happiness Research: The Birth of Modern Happiness”. 2015. International Journal of Happiness and Development, 2 (4): 383-387.

• “Gender-Based Discrimination in Care Service Occupations: Result from an Online Experiment”
• “Femininity and Care Work: A Critique of Care Economic Theories”.
• “Discrimination and Economic Wellbeing of LGBT People in the US.” Report for Center for Employment Equity, University of Massachusetts Amherst, August 2020.
• “Does It Get Better?” A Critical Response to Carpenter and Eppink

Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts | 2023

• Research Grants

Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts | 2022

• PERI Dissertation Fellowship

Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts | 2021

• PERI Barnard Family Fellowship

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada | 2021- 2023

• Doctoral Fellowship

University of Massachusetts – Department of Economics | 2018 - 2023

• Graduate Fellowship and Summer Dissertation Fellowship 

Paul Delaney Award for Outstanding Young Philanthropist | November 2016

• Recognize recent alumnus or alumna whose work sowing seeds of friendship and a spirit of philanthropy 

University of Toronto Graduate Fellowship | September 2015

• Full tuition and award funding for graduate studies 

Governor General’s Silver Medal | May 2015

• Awarded to the student who graduates with the highest academic standing in the Honours Bachelor Degree program in the University. For more than 140 years, the Governor General’s Academic Medals have recognized the scholastic achievements of students in Canada.

Political Economy of Races, Genders, and Sexuality

• Understanding racial, gender, and sexual inequalities as economic institutions.
• Empirical evidence of income distribution, poverty, reproduction, and the role of government’s policies.
• Theory of labor market discrimination, occupational segregation, and identity economics.

Political Economy of Big Data

• Competition and monopoly of technology platforms 4
• Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on labor, bodies, culture, and the environment
• Surveillance and the commodification of knowledge and behaviors

Introductory/ Intermediate Microeconomics

• Foundational concepts of demand, supply, production, price, and equilibrium
• Introduction to social coordination problems and social preferences
• Competition, externalities, and market failures Marxian Economics

Marxian Economics

• Introduction to Marxist political economy, historical materialism, and dialectical method
• Labor Value of Theory, surplus values, capitalist production process
• Accumulation of capital, circulation of capital, and distribution of surplus values

• Instructor in the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2020 - Present

Courses: Intermediate Microeconomic Theory; Marxian Economics; Introduction to Political Economy; Political Economy of Big Data

• Teaching Assistant in the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2019 - 2021

Courses: Graduate Applied Econometrics (Fall 2020), Intermediate Microeconomic Theory (Spring 2019, Fall 2020), Introductory Macroeconomic Theory (Spring 2021), Political Economy of the Environment (Fall 2021)

Consulting Associate (Anti-trust & Competition Economics) at Charles River Associates , 2016 - 2018

“Gender-Based Discrimination in Care Service Occupations: Result from an Online Experiment 

• AEA Annual Conference, January 2024
• AEA CSQIEP Seminar Series, November 2023

Femininity and Care Work: A critique of Care Economic Theories 

• AEA Annual Conference, January 2023
• International Association For Feminist Economics, Annual Conference, 2022

The Political Economy of Heteronormativity

• Eastern Economics Association, Annual Conference, 2020
• New School of Social Research, UMass – New School Graduate Workshop, 2019

Lee Badgett

Professor of Economics

Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Williams Distinguished Scholar

Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law & Public Policy, UCLA School of Law

Email: lbadgett@econs.umass.edu

Joya Misra

Provost Professor and Roy J. Zuckerberg Endowed Leadership Chair

Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts

Amherst Email: misra@umass.edu

Katherine Moos

Assistant Professor

Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Email: kmoos@umass.edu