Penn Sociology is excited to welcome Regina S. Baker to our faculty in Fall 2015, with an appointment as Assistant Professor of Sociology. Baker recently earned her Doctorate in Sociology from Duke University and completed a 2014-2015 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. She was previously a Visiting Researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center in the Social Policy and Inequality Unit.
Regina’s research intersects the areas of poverty, social inequality, family & children, race, gender, class, work, and social policy. Her work has also been supported by the the American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship Program and the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. Her recent publication in Journal of Marriage and Family titled, “The Changing Importance of Marriage and Work for Child Poverty in the U.S., 1974-2010” documents that even though both marriage and work continue to protect children against poverty, their relative importance has changed over time with work becoming more salient than marriage. The findings have direct implications for policy discussions around the role of economic and family conditions in affecting child poverty. Regina is a great addition to our sociology and demography programs.