While the gender wage gap narrowed over the course of the 20th century, progress has largely stalled since the 1990s. One reason may be women’s underrepresentation in well-remunerated, in-demand occupations such as computer science--a field where women’s representation has actually decreased over time. One possible explanation for that trend? The wage gap. Sharon Sassler, Professor of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University, will examine three key factors in this persistent gap: gender, race/ethnicity, and nativity.

Sharon Sassler received her PhD in Sociology from Brown University and joined the Cornell faculty in 2005. A social demographer, Sassler’s research examines factors shaping the activities of young adults and their life course transitions into school and work, relationships, and parenthood, and how these transitions vary by gender, race/ethnicity, and social class. Her recently published book, Cohabitation Nation: Gender, Class, and the Remaking of Relationships (2017), examines how cohabitation is contributing to growing levels of family inequality in the United States; it won the Goode Book Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association in 2018. A second stream of her work examines the retention and advancement of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) occupations, as well as the gender wage gap in STEM.

This event is cosponsored by the Department of Computer Science, the Center on Women, Gender, and Public Policy, and the Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation.