Yen-Hsin Alice Cheng

Yen-Hsin Alice Cheng is a Professor and Research Fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of Sociology in Taipei, Taiwan. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from Pennsylvania State University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany.

Her research focuses on family demography with particular emphasis on social inequalities. She investigates socioeconomic differentials in marriage, cohabitation, divorce, and fertility patterns across Taiwan and East Asia over recent decades. Her work also examines disadvantaged youths and families, as well as comparative studies on public attitudes toward homosexuality.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent focus on demographic transitions in East Asia, particularly examining how educational attainment affects family formation patterns. Her research employs sophisticated demographic methods to analyze longitudinal trends in marriage, divorce, and fertility, with special attention to Taiwan's unique social context within the broader East Asian region.

As a leading scholar in family demography, Professor Cheng's work bridges sociological theory with rigorous demographic analysis, contributing significantly to our understanding of how social inequalities manifest in family formation processes across different cultural contexts in Asia.