Julia Behrman

Julia Behrman serves as an Associate Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, where she conducts internationally recognized research on family change in global contexts. Her work examines how family structures interact with major societal forces including educational expansion, environmental change, women's labor force participation, and migration patterns, with particular attention to power dynamics within households and their implications for social inequality.

Dr. Behrman earned her PhD from New York University in 2017 following a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Her methodological expertise combines advanced quantitative techniques with comparative demographic analysis across diverse geographical settings.

Her research program centers on family sociology, gender studies, and demography, with significant contributions to understanding how events like natural disasters, migration, and policy changes alter family power structures. She investigates whether evolving family forms mitigate or reinforce inequalities both between and within households, addressing critical questions about who holds decision-making authority in families and how crises reshape these dynamics.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong methodological emphasis on quantitative analysis of large-scale datasets, with thematic focus on reproductive health preferences, migration impacts, and family size norms across the United States, France, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her work consistently bridges demographic trends with sociological theory to explain household-level responses to macro-level social changes.

Her scholarly excellence has been recognized through multiple prestigious awards:

• American Sociological Association Section on Education Award
• American Sociological Association Section on Population Award
• American Sociological Association Section on Development Award
• Society for the Study of Social Problems Award
• Population Association of America Award
• Sociologist AIDS Network Award

Dr. Behrman has secured competitive research funding from the National Science Foundation and South African Medical Research Council to support her investigations into family and demographic change. As an educator, she teaches undergraduate courses including "Gender and Society" and graduate-level courses in "Research Design" and "Regression II," while actively mentoring PhD students through a structured advising process that emphasizes methodological rigor and theoretical innovation.