Jane Waldfogel

Jane Waldfogel is the Compton Foundation Centennial Professor for the Prevention of Children's and Youth Problems at Columbia University School of Social Work and a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics. Her research focuses on the impact of public policies on child and family well-being, with particular expertise in comparative social policy, inequality and mobility, and early childhood development.

Her research interests span multiple domains including work-family policies, child welfare systems, educational equity, and anti-poverty strategies. Waldfogel examines these issues through comparative lenses, studying policy approaches across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and other industrialized nations. Her recent work includes analyses of universal child benefits, paid family leave policies, and social mobility patterns during the early years of childhood.

Waldfogel's extensive publication record reveals consistent focus on welfare reform impacts, child poverty reduction, and early childhood interventions. Her research demonstrates how policy changes affect family expenditures, child development outcomes, and long-term mobility patterns. She employs rigorous empirical methods to compare policy effectiveness across different national contexts.

• Compton Foundation Centennial Professor
• Visiting Professor at LSE's Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion
• Research Fellow at CASE during 2023-24 sabbatical

Waldfogel has advised numerous research projects examining inequality in school readiness, social mobility patterns across multiple countries, and family-based economic empowerment strategies for vulnerable populations including orphaned children in Uganda. Her forthcoming book on universal child benefits, written during her 2023-24 sabbatical at CASE, promises to contribute significantly to policy debates on child poverty reduction.