Jennifer Glass

Jennifer Glass is the Centennial Commission Professor of Liberal Arts in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Research Associate at the Population Research Center. Her distinguished career spans sociological research on work-family dynamics, gender stratification, and labor market inequalities, with extensive publications in leading journals including American Journal of Sociology and Demography.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Wisconsin–Madison

Research Interests

Professor Glass specializes in work-family issues, gender stratification in labor markets, STEM workforce diversity, telecommuting practices, and religious ideology's impact on women's economic attainment. Her research examines how social policies and labor conditions affect mothers' employment, mental health, and economic security, with particular focus on gender integration in male-dominated fields and cross-national work-family policy comparisons. She investigates the interplay between religious conservatism and women's socioeconomic outcomes through longitudinal analyses of marriage and career trajectories.

Research Trends

Analysis of her 15 most recent publications (2021-2025) reveals three dominant research thrusts: (1) The economic transformation of motherhood, examining why US mothers increasingly become primary breadwinners and how this affects household economics; (2) Pandemic-era work transformations, analyzing remote/hybrid work adoption and its implications for domestic inequality; (3) Cross-national policy evaluations, assessing how work-family reconciliation policies impact child poverty, gender inequality, and fertility across OECD nations. Her STEM-focused work consistently applies intersectional frameworks to analyze career retention and job search outcomes.

Scientific Awards

• Jessie Bernard Award (American Sociological Association)
• Harriet Presser Award (Population Association of America)
• Reuben Hill Award (National Council on Family Relations)
• Three-time nominee for Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research

Advising and Grants

Professor Glass mentors graduate students in sociology and women's and gender studies, though specific advisees are not listed in available materials. Her research has secured major funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health (including chairing NIH's Social Science and Population study section 2017-2019), and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She has directed collaborative projects on STEM labor force diversification, work-family policy impacts, and pandemic-era employment transformations, consistently focusing on gendered outcomes and policy interventions.

Labs and Teams

As a Research Associate at UT Austin's Population Research Center, Glass collaborates with interdisciplinary teams on demographic studies of family formation, labor market dynamics, and policy impacts. Her work integrates quantitative methods from sociology, demography, and economics, often utilizing cross-national datasets to examine how institutional contexts shape gendered work-family outcomes. She contributes to the center's mission of advancing population science through rigorous social research with policy relevance.