Care work has not figured prominently as an explanation of economic inequality, except on topics related to gender inequality. This talk will argue that care infrastructures can shape family income inequality and examine access to childcare services in the US as a case study. The study shows that market-priced childcare systems generate inequalities in how births impact mothers’ income contributions to families and aggravate family income inequality as a result. This study is part of a larger project and framework to understand the significance of structural constraints on care provision for shaping various forms of economic inequalities.
The UMass Sociology Department’s Colloquium and Special Events Committee (CASEC) presents this free online talk with Dr. Pilar Gonalons-Pons in collaboration with the Institute for Social Science Research at UMass Amherst.
Please join us at this Zoom link.
The public talk will be followed immediately with a meet-and-greet with graduate students, from 12:30 - 1 pm. There are also limited appointments available to those who wish to meet with Dr. Gonalons following her talk. To request a meeting slot, please complete this short form.
Dr. Pilar Gonalons-Pons is the Alber-Klingelfhofer Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, with affiliations to the Population Studies Center, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation 2021-2022. Her research examines how gender, work, families, and public policies structure economic inequalities, with a particular focus on how inequalities change over time and over the life course. The overlal goal of her work is to develop a comprehensive understanding about the political economy of care and reproductive paid and unpaid work and how it shapes economic inequalities. She also has interests in understanding how and when change in gender culture occurs and how it shapes family dynamics. Her research has appeared in American Sociological Review, Demography, Socio-Economic Review, Social Science Research, Social Problems, Social Politics, Demographic Research, and the RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.