Marcia Carlson

Marcia Carlson is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, holding a faculty position in the Department of Sociology. She is additionally a Network Member of the Inequality: Measurement, Interpretation, and Policy (MIP) network, Associate Director for Training at the Center for Demography and Ecology, and an Affiliate at the Institute for Research on Poverty.

Her educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan (1999)
• Two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University

Professor Carlson's research focuses on family contexts and their impact on child and parental wellbeing, with recent work examining fertility patterns and family formation among unmarried parents in the United States. She investigates how growing family complexity influences individual wellbeing and societal inequality through the lenses of family demography, social policy, and inequality studies. Her methodological approach integrates demographic analysis with sociological frameworks to address structural disparities.

She actively contributes to the Center for Demography and Ecology through her leadership in training initiatives and collaborates with the Institute for Research on Poverty to advance interdisciplinary research on poverty dynamics and family systems.