Laurie DeRose Ph.D.

Recent Scientific Accomplishments

Laurie DeRose’s current research is focused on global family demography. Her work has shown that maternal union transitions are associated with poorer child health outcomes throughout the Global South (Population Studies 2017), just as they are in contexts with more substantial material resources supporting children’s health. More generally, her work pushes the limits of developing country data sets to answer questions about family demography known to be important in the developed world. She is co-editing a book, Family Inequality in Europe and the Americas: Causes and Consequences, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

Future Plans

DeRose is currently extending her work on children’s living arrangements and schooling (Journal of Family and Economic Issues 2017) to evaluate whether progress toward universal secondary education is faster in places with higher proportions of children reared in intact families. She is also seeking to determine whether the gender gap in secondary education is more likely to be closed — or even reversed — where high proportions of children are reared by single women. In future work, she plans to explore how religion interacts with family structure in shaping children’s outcomes.