It's notable that Sen. Ossoff is pressing this attack in a tight re-election fight in a purple state. The rest of the party needs to pay attention.

A student-level event-study design across three states shows special education supports substantially boost achievement of students with disabilities, from Stephanie G. Coffey, Joshua Goodman, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Leanna Stiefel, Marcus A. Winters, and Yunee H. Yoon www.nber.org/papers/w34998

Williams, Martin J. “Causal Inference, Agency, and the Problem of Inherent Endogeneity,” 2025.

It’s not just that there is no requirement, but ASA prohibits any requirement. This is why I am no longer an ASA member and won’t serve on ASA journal editorial boards.

How far can you get in 60 minutes? European cities offer vastly larger areas reachable by public transit than US cities of comparable population size. Source: lconwell.github.io/lucasconwell...

How much of a reason is each of the following for why you are not likely to have children? Major reasons Percent Total percent Don't want to 14.5 67.1 Social / environment issues + Don't want to + Can't afford 9.4 Spouse issues 8.0 32.6 Social / environment issues + Don't want to 7.7 NONE 7.2 Infertility 6.3 12.9 Spouse issues + Don't want to 5.9 Social / environment issues + Don't want to + Can't afford + Negative experience 4.6 Don't want to + Can't afford 4.1 Spouse issues + Don't want to + Can't afford 2.5 Social / environment issues + Spouse issues + Don't want to + Can't afford + Negative experience 2.3 Don't want to + Negative experience 2.2 Spouse issues + Can't afford 2.2 Social / environment issues + Spouse issues + Don't want to + Can't afford 2.1 Social / environment issues + Don't want to + Negative experience 2.0 Social / environment issues + Spouse issues + Don't want to 1.9 Social / environment issues + Spouse issues + Can't afford 1.8 Social / environment issues + Can't afford 1.4 Don't want to + Infertility 1.3 Social / environment issues 1.3 40.0 Spouse issues + Don't want to + Can't afford + Negative experience 1.0 Social / environment issues + Don't want to + Can't afford + Infertility 1.0 Can't afford 0.9 35.8 Don't want to + Negative experience + Infertility 0.7 Negative experience 0.6 17.8 Spouse issues + Don't want to + Infertility 0.6 Social / environment issues + Spouse issues 0.6 Social / environment issues + Spouse issues + Don't want to + Negative experience 0.6 Don't want to + Can't afford + Negative experience 0.5 Top 95% 95.2

New from me: Most Americans who aren’t having children don’t want to (and not because of the environment).

To look at the overlapping reasons not to have children, I got the Pew data, constructed categories, and made a table of combinations.
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familyinequality.wordpress.com/2026/03/13/m...

It is pretty remarkable how little the press is remarking on the Trump administration's constant, harping, scraping desire to specifically remake the press.

A line graph of the number of projects funded by NIH for fiscal years 2020-2026. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies below the other curves but appears to be increasing at close to the normal pace.

My weekly NIH update...

The fiscal year 2026 curve still lies below the other curves but appears to be increasing at close to the normal pace.

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New data on ICE arrests (2015–2025) show that as arrests surge, the share of arrested people with criminal convictions fall sharply, from Chloe N. East, Caitlin Patler, and Elizabeth Cox www.nber.org/papers/w34794

so sorry to hear this, mark! hopefully you find relief soon

exactly. once again, sociologists have been engaging questions about inequality and opportunity for a long time. cc: @mivich.bsky.social

Yes! Interesting that the educational mismatch q has been relatively neglected in the v recent past in the US, while there is great English scholarship including at least Campbell etal (2022) and Maragkou (2020)... and that the lit is restricted to matching conditional on attaining a univ degree.

Thank you! It appears that focus here is on field of study mismatch conditional on university enrollment.

This is collaborative work with a wonderful team: Alejandra Mizala, Alejandra Abufhele, and Luis Herskovic.

Unpaywalled version of this manuscript available at: osf.io/preprints/so...
As always, thank you @socarxiv.bsky.social

Bright but Poor: Undermatching in the Access to Postsecondary Education - Alejandra Mizala, Luis Herskovic, Alejandra Abufhele, Florencia Torche, 2026 Undermatching identifies high school graduates who do not attend selective colleges even if they have high academic performance. To date, the study of undermatc...

New @aeraedresearch.bsky.social article: “Bright but Poor”.

Many talented students from low-income families have the grades for higher education but do not make it. We show where the missed opportunities arise across the education pipeline

Low-hanging fruit for ed policy

doi.org/10.3102/0002...

Excited to share that my new book (w/ Xiang Zhou), Causal Mediation Analysis, is now out from CUP.

Order at tinyurl.com/3hspt6em with discount code CMA2025.

Includes software for Stata and R, available here: causalmedanalysis.github.io.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen.

I ran a simple model with new public data then used 1 prompt to make ChatGPT guess what the model would produce. With 10 seconds of "thinking," it was very close. The implications of this are catastrophic. The American Sociological Association should do something about this but it doesn't care to
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great work by @jasminabdelghany.bsky.social and coauthors. i like the explicit consideration of physiological and behavioral factors.

The Birthrate Is Plunging. Why Some Say That’s a Good Thing.

Happy to have contributed to this along w/ @karenguzzo.bsky.social @marthajbailey.bsky.social & Melissa Kearney. My favorite from Karen: “We spent decades shaming women 4 having kids under the wrong circumstances, 4 not having their ducks in a row. Now they are holding up their end of the bargain.”

Results show a marked relationship between increases in local wealth inequality and reduced mobility for children in the lower half of the income distribution.

⚠️ New WP ⚠️ with @ftorche.bsky.social: Can childhood exposure to local wealth inequality help explain growing class gaps in income mobility? Short answer: Yes! Read the full answer here: doi.org/10.31235/osf... #Demography #Sociology #EconSky

85% of babies in 2026 will be born in Asia and Africa.

New Post-Doc Opportunity:

Princeton OPR is hiring postdocs in population studies.

PhD in demography or related fields (sociology, economics, epi, etc.) welcome.

Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/181246

Review begins 3/1/16. Please share!

The McLanahan Award is given in honor of Sara McLanahan, a remarkable scholar, mentor, and policy advisor. The award goes to a senior scholar for extraordinary contributions to the study of family change, the well-being of children and families, and related social policies.

Beginning of job description. It states: "The Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor who has expertise in a broad range of epidemiologic methods. About the Job The Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, invites applications at the rank of Assistant Professor (tenure-track). As a faculty member, the individual will actively contribute to the Division’s mission through research, teaching, advising, and professional service activities. Key responsibilities include: ● Maintain and expand expertise in the application of foundational and cutting-edge epidemiologic methods. Candidates are expected to have a deep understanding of causal inference, bias mitigation, and statistical modelling. Expertise across diverse epidemiologic methods and content areas is welcomed. ● Develop a research program that incorporates rigorous epidemiologic methods, and collaborate with other faculty as a co-investigator on new grant initiatives. Example areas of possible methodologic applications include, but are not limited to, causal analysis, bias analysis, infectious disease modelling, mutational signatures in cancer, -omics data applications, spatial and temporal analyses, pharmacoepidemiology, quasi-experimental methods, implementation science, generative artificial intelligence and/or machine learning, digital health, wearables, etc. ● Contribute to Epidemiology curriculum development, teach epidemiologic methods as part of the Epidemiology PhD methods sequence and other classes as needed, and participate in development of the PhD qualifying examinations. Advising PhD, post-doctoral, and master's students is also expected. ● Actively engage in service, including at a national level through professional organizations focused on epidemiologic methods. ● Serve as a resource for translating up-to-date epidemiologic methods to applications i…

Good morning epi methods community! Please consider applying for (and spreading the word about) this position here at Minnesota. It's a great place to be! (You can read the whole description and apply here: apply.interfolio.com/179313) #EpiSky

Did you publish a sociological book about families in 2024 or 2025? You should nominate it for the ASA Goode Book Award! I'm on the committee and looking forward to reading nominated books 🤓

finally, we're living through precedented times

“Severe Tornadoes & Infant Birth Weight”: In considering “environmental hazards as drivers of inequality & stratification,” @nickdemark.bsky.social et al. show how severe tornadoes led to ↓ in birth weight for the infants of Black mothers, esp. early in pregnancy. read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...

Billionaires with $1 salaries – and other legal tax dodges the ultrawealthy use to keep their riches The richest Americans can largely avoid paying income and other taxes. A new book explains the history.

The obscenely wealthy rarely earn much in taxable income, and our system is replete with ways for the mega-rich to avoid paying taxes. Yet we're still blaming immigrants for our economic woes - and that's exactly how the mega-rich want it. It's all misdirection so they can hoard wealth and power.

In “Consequences of Community Violence for Contraceptive Use & Provision in Mexico,” @signesvallfors.bsky.social @mlcaudillo.bsky.social & O. Torrisi find exposure to violence is associated with accelerated transition to first use, esp. for long-term exposure. read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...