Population Research Discovery Seminars

Co-Sponsor(s):

Population Health Initiative

This talk will discuss emerging perspectives on the social construction of age, with a focus on implications for demography and inequality research. I will draw on several of my ongoing projects about conceptualizing, theorizing, and measuring age as a social construct. “Aging” is often considered an individual and societal problem; but there is much more we can learn by going beyond this perspective and studying “age” as a multilevel and multidimensional system of inequality. Age is an under-theorized yet central piece of social structure, interactions, and individual experience. Being more precise in our theory and measurement of age opens the door for more expansive and impactful empirical and theoretical research on individuals and society.

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Sasha Johfre is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, core faculty in the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. Her research considers the creation and consequences of conceptual categories, including ways that human difference (e.g. based on gender, race, age, etc.) is seen as real and natural. Through her work, she aims to build new conceptual and methodological tools that help people understand, interrogate, and intentionally engage in social processes. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Stanford University and a BA in evolutionary biology from Harvard University.