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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

The Hidden Private Safety Net: Shared Households and Older Adults’ Housing Costs – Kristin Perkins

Follow this link to sign up for a 1:1 meeting with Dr. Perkins during her visit on February 13th.

We are looking forward to hosting Kristin Perkins from Georgetown University on Friday, February 13 in Parrington Hall 360 and on Zoom. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Population Health Initiative and the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance.

Where U.S. public supports fall short of need, individuals often turn to the private safety net – instrumental support from family and friends. Although impacts of the public safety net are well-documented, less research considers how the private safety net shapes patterns of hardship. Focusing on the case of older adults’ shared households, this study demonstrates how the provision and receipt of private safety net support shapes housing costs and, ultimately, our understanding of the contours of the housing affordability crisis. Using Survey of Income and Program Participation data, we find that 15% of older adults are hosts, who share their home with others, and 6% are guests, who live in someone else’s home. Counterfactual estimates reveal that guests pay $713 less a month on housing than they would in nonshared housing, and hosts pay $53 more. Without shared households, an additional 5% of older adults would experience cost burdens, and racial disparities would be up to 400% larger. Our findings illustrate that private safety net support is an important component of the U.S. social safety net: taking this support for granted risks obscuring the level of need – and disparities in needs – that are left by the private market.

Kristin L. Perkins is an assistant professor of sociology at Georgetown University. She studies inequality and social stratification focusing on children, families, households, and neighborhoods. Her current work on neighborhood inequality and household composition is united by its common focus on where, and with whom, people live, and she contributes to scholarship in two primary subfields: urban sociology and family demography. Her research has been published in journals including Demography, Social Forces, Sociological Science, Social Science Research, and Urban Affairs Review. She received her PhD in Sociology & Social Policy from Harvard University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

Chen Finds that Leveraging Residents as Sharing Captains in a Decentralized Scheme Significantly Enhances Community Resilience and Outperforms Status Quo Fixed-Point Distribution

 CSDE Affiliate Cynthia Chen (Civil & Environmental Engineering) published two studies that show untapped capacity for community resilience through place-based peer-to-peer (P2P) resource sharing. Both studies use data from two socioeconomically different communities in Seattle. First, in an article in Nature Cities, Chen demonstrated that under a 5-day isolation scenario, place-based P2P sharing can reduce a community’s resilience loss by 13.4–100%; on average, 22–44 social ties per household support an 80% sharing rate of surplus resources.  In a related paper in Transportation Research, Chen simulated and compared the efficacy of a P2P decentralized scheme involving sharing captains (residents that take on the role of distributing resources among neighbors) against the status quo fixed-point distribution method that relies on residents to come and get resources. The decentralized P2P strategy reached 100% resource coverage faster. Moreover, while the success of P2P strategy lies fundamentally on residents’ willingness to share, a satisfactory outcome can be reached even when a substantial share of residents (40%) is unwilling to share with anybody.

Peckham Explores How Transitions Between Types of Employment Quality Impact Health 

CSDE Affiliate Trevor Peckham (DEOHS/King County) recently published an article in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine that explored how transitions between types of employment quality impact health in the United States. Peckham and co-authors Vanessa Oddo and Eric W. Lundstrom used the U.S. Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data from 2008 to 2022 to identify unique employment quality types for men and women.  Respondents transitioning to or from precarious employment or unemployment reported poor/fair self-rated health (SRH) and self-rated mental health (SRMH) more frequently relative to those with Standard Employment Relationships. Some respondents cycled between precarious employment and unemployment, potentially compounding the effects of employment instability on health.

Russell Sage Foundation – Social, Political and Economic Inequality Research Grants (03/11/26)

Award amount: $200,000
Sponsor deadline: 03/11/2026
Program description:
The Russell Sage Foundation’s (RSF) program on Social, Political, and Economic Inequality supports innovative research on the factors that contribute to social, political, and economic inequalities in the U.S., and the extent to which those inequalities affect social, political, psychological, and economic outcomes such as educational and labor market access and opportunities, social and economic mobility within and across generations, and civic participation and representation.
We seek innovative investigator-initiated research that will expand our understanding of social, political, and economic inequalities and the mechanisms by which they influence the lives of individuals, families, and communities. We welcome projects that explore the relevance of economic, racial, ethnic, age, gender, immigration, residence, or other statuses for the distribution of social, political, and economic outcomes within and across different status groups.
RSF prioritizes analyses that make use of newly available data or demonstrate novel uses of existing data. We support original data collection when a project is focused on important program priorities, projects that conduct survey or field experiments and qualitative studies. RSF encourages methodological variety and inter-disciplinary collaboration. Proposed projects must have well-developed conceptual frameworks and rigorous research designs. Analytical models must be well-specified and research methods must be appropriate.
A brief letter of inquiry (4 pages max. excluding references) must precede a full proposal to determine whether the proposed project is in line with the Foundation’s program priorities and available funds.
Eligibility:
Faculty & PIs

Russell Sage Foundation – Causal Research on the Criminal Justice System for Early-Career Scholars (04/01/26)

Award amount: $100,000
Sponsor deadline: 04/01/2026
Program description:
The Russell Sage Foundation (RSF), in collaboration with the Criminal Justice program at Arnold Ventures (AV) is pleased to announce its first annual grants competition for early-career scholars. Our goal is to cultivate a pipeline of researchers conducting causal research on the criminal justice system. Criminal justice policies and practices include the work of police, courts, jails, prisons, probation and parole, and immigration detention.
Proposals must include causal research designs that can reliably isolate the treatment effects of a policy, practice, or intervention. Examples include difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, instrumental variables, and randomized controlled trials. Mixed methods projects will be considered if a causal research design is central to the proposal.
Eligibility:
Faculty & PIs, Early-career

Societal Impacts Interviews Four Associate Editors

Societal Impacts interviewed their four Associate Editors to share more about their research background and motivations to join the journal’s editorial team.  Societal Impacts is an open access, peer-reviewed journal, which publishes brief articles that describe the societal impacts of research projects. The journal serves as a platform for papers demonstrating steps towards resolving major challenges, like climate change and inequality, and delivering on global initiatives, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Associate Editors, who each bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to enrich the review process, are:

  • Alexander Gilder  (University of Reading, UK)
  • Tracey O’Connor (Munster Technological University, Ireland)
  • Hua Pang (Tianjin University, China)
  • Richard Reibstein (Boston University, USA)

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Technology Program (Rolling)

Organization: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Technology Program
Award amount: Undisclosed; Most projects funded between 50K to 600K
Sponsor deadline: Rolling deadline.
Description: The Foundation’s Technology grantmaking aims to leverage advances in technology to benefit the research community. This includes three sub programs: (1) Exploratory Grantmaking in Technology; (2) Open Source in Science; and (3) Scientific Collaboration.  The RFP can be found here. Interested grantseekers should email a letter of inquiry of no more than two pages to technology@sloan.org. Contact UW College of Arts & Sciences Corporate & Foundations Relations if you are interested in applying or have questions.
The fast pace of technological change and broader investment of resources by industry drive the architecture of the Foundation’s Technology grantmaking, which aims to leverage advances in technology to benefit the research community. The program includes exploratory grantmaking designed to quickly surface, develop, and evaluate emerging technologies, as well as subprograms that are structured to develop specific opportunities through sustained grantmaking that engages technical, community, and institutional practices. A new focus area is AI as a tool or collaborator. The foundation is interested in ideas to help clarify where AI-as-tool ends, where AI-as-collaborator might responsibly begin, and what technical, institutional, or design work is needed to bridge that gap for the scientific enterprise.
Exploratory Grantmaking in Technology
Exploratory grantmaking is intended to bring community needs and priorities into sharper focus and allow the Foundation to determine whether there is a clear strategy and potential impact in a specific area. Supported activities may include workshops and other expert convenings, early technology development and prototyping, landscape analyses, development of protocols and standards, initial research on and engagement with potential user communities, and demonstration or other proof-of-concept projects. Ideal focus areas lie at the intersection of research and technology, are sufficiently limited that the Foundation could make an impact with its available resources, and involve issues for which public or private funding is scarce or unavailable.  Focus areas: AI in Science & Automation in Science.
Open Source in Science
Once viewed as primarily a licensing strategy, open source has become increasingly established as a set of practices that facilitate distributed collaboration. To fully realize the potential of innovations like data science, computational modeling, novel instrumentation, and machine learning, this program aims to adapt and extend best practices in open source into academic technology development while recognizing the unique workflows and incentives of scientific research. Rather than funding individual open source development projects, grants in this area focus mainly on tooling, institutions, economic models, and incentives around the production, maintenance, and adoption of research software, hardware, models, and other related research outputs. Focus areas: Institutional Support for Open Source, Publication & Archiving, and Roles & Career Paths.
Scientific Collaboration
Technology platforms can enable geographically dispersed collaboration in configurations that mix remote and in-person, live and asynchronous, immersive, and even human and nonhuman interaction. Given the climate, public health, and equity issues raised by needing to meet in-person, this program explores the ways that technology can enable or inhibit rich interactions at different scales across distance, time zones, and languages. Focus areas: The Future of Conferences & Workshops, Group Dynamics in Science, & Human-AI Collaboration.
Eligibility:
Faculty & PIs

CSSCR Workshop Offerings Winter Quarter 2026

The Center for Social Science Computation and Research (CSSCR) is offering seven workshops during Winter 2026 Quarter, open to all members of the UW community, whether student, faculty or staff.  See a full list with workshop descriptions and registration links here. 

Geospatial Analysis in Python

  • Date:  Monday, February 2, 2026
  • Time: 2:00pm – 3:20pm

Introduction to Thematic Analysis in Atlas.ti

  • Date:  Thursday, February 5, 2026
  • Time: 3:00pm – 4:20pm

Introduction to STATA 13

  • Date:  Friday, February 6, 2026
  • Time: 9:00am – 10:20am

Data Wrangling in R

  • Date:  Friday, February 6, 2026
  • Time: 2:30pm – 3:50pm

Machine Learning Methods for Supervised Single-Label and Multi-Label Classification

  • Date:  Thursday, February 12, 2026
  • Time: 1:00pm – 2:20pm

PAST WORKSHOPS

Introduction to Python

  • Date:  Wednesday, January 21, 2026
  • Time: 10:30am – 11:50am

Efficient R Programming: Working with Many Columns, Functions, and Models

  • Date:  Thursday, January 22, 2026
  • Time: 12:00pm – 1:20pm

FemQuant Launches Spring Seminar Series

FemQuant is a network of researchers whose goal is to explore the use of feminist theory in current quantitive, empirical research across the social sciences, including sociology, economics, demography, social policy, psychology, health and international relations. They are hosting a monthly seminar series via zoom with scholars from around the world. The program of online FemQuant events for the coming term is now available, with FemQuant’s first event of the new year taking place next week on January 14. As always, all FemQuant events are free, online and open to all, but registration is required.

January – Research Seminar – Wednesday 14 January 2026
8-9:00 (EST) / 13-14:00 (GMT) / 14-15:00 (CET) (Check time in your time zone)

Outsider Orbit: Segmentation of Employment Trajectories and Feminisation of Outsiders in South Korea
Dr. Hyojin Seo, King’s College London

This paper investigates the labour market segmentation patterns based on employment trajectories using group-based multi-trajectory modelling on Korean Labor & Income Panel Study data. We find clear evidence of a segmented labour market, where outsiders have distinct employment trajectories from insiders, and women’s overrepresentation in outsider trajectories. Furthermore, outsiders are trapped in an ‘outsider orbit’, indicating a structural barrier that limits women to outsider jobs in Korea.

Hyojin Seo is a gender and labour market researcher, with expertise on gendered precarity and the role of institutions shaping gendered labour market patterns in Europe and East Asia. She is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at King’s College London, having recently been granted a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship to investigate gendered experience of precarity in workers’ long-term career amid digitalisation in the UK and South Korea.

February – Research Seminar – Thursday 12 February 2026
10-11:00 (EST) / 15-16:00 (GMT) / 16-17:00 (CET) (Check time in your time zone)

Deroutinization of Labor and Second Birth in West Germany: The Moderating Role of Childcare
Dr. Honorata Bogusz, University of Warsaw

Further details to be announced soon.

Honorata Bogusz is an empirical economist and demographer employed in the Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam), Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. Her research interests lie in inequalities related to labor, gender, family, and LGBTQ+ issues.

March – Conversation – Tuesday 3 March 2026
10-11:00 (EST) / 15-16:00 (GMT) / 16-17:00 (CET) (Check time in your time zone)

A Conversation with FemDem: The Feminist Demography Collective

This event is an opportunity to be in conversation with folks from the FemDem collective, hear about their plans, and chat about the future of feminist demographic research.

The Feminist Demography Collective is a group of scholars that seeks to advance the field of demography by critically assessing the historical roots of the field, pushing rigorous research informed by feminist theories, and demanding accountable research practices that are human- and community-centered.

May – Research Seminar

Chae Eun Kim, Cornell University

Further details to be announced soon.

June – Panel – Tuesday 23 June 2026
10 -11:00 (EDT) / 15-16:00 (BST) / 16-17:00 (CEST) (Check in your time zone)

Panel: Navigating the Peer Review Process with Queer/Feminist Quantitative Work Dr. Ridhi Kashyap, Dr. Rin Reczek, & Dr. Wendy Manning

In this panel, we will have a moderated discussion about the peer review processes with three scholars who have insights from perspectives as an editor, author, and reviewer of feminist/queer quantitative work. We will be collecting questions from audience members in the registration form and doing live Q&A during the event.

Ridhi Kashyap is Professor of Demography & Computational Social Science at University of Oxford, Rin Reczek is Professor of Sociology at The Ohio State University, and Wendy Manning is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University.