Media

Philip N. Cohen in the news, most recent links first. (For media videos, visit my YouTube channel.) Working with reporters and editors is part of my mission as a social scientist and citizen. Feel free to contact me.

Boomers (documentary), November 4, 2024

Philip Cohen, sociologist and demographer: “The Baby Boom was a real demographic event. It's not wrong at all to think that there is an experience that having been born in the Baby Boom that stays with you. That is the category that makes the most sense.”

Radio Free Asia, October 29, 2024: 中国新友好婚育措施能挽回低迷的生育率吗 (Can China’s new marriage-friendly measures restore its low birth rate?)

Philip Cohen, a professor of population sociology at the University of Maryland, said, "If the Chinese government really puts money into these measures, it will be very beneficial to families and society. But I am sure that this will not have much impact on the fertility rate."

Bloomberg, August 14, 2024: Are Kamala Harris and Tim Walz True Baby Boomers?

“Naming ‘generations’ and fixing their birth dates promotes pseudoscience, undermines public understanding, and impedes social science research,” University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen wrote in 2021.

The Dissenter, July 25, 2024: Philip Cohen: Does It Make Sense To Talk About Generations?

Elle, June 21, 2024: Why Are All Our Friends the Same Age?

Generations are easy ways to mark time but are just as dubious indicators of personalities as star signs. There’s now a call to do away with them altogether. In 2021, American sociologist Philip Cohen wrote an open letter to the Pew Research Centre — the country’s main polling organisation — to ditch the labels. “Naming generations and fixing their birth dates promotes pseudoscience, undermines public understanding and impedes social-science research,” he wrote.

The Newsmakers, June 19, 2024: Is a declining birthrate a blessing or a curse?

I said: “Growth as a process has a lot of positive consequences. Unfortunately, the larger population that growth produces causes a lot of problems. So we like the dynamic of growth but the outcome of growth is unmanageable in the long run.”

Businessweek, June 13, 2024, Israeli Scientists Are Shunned by Universities Over the Gaza War

In March, Philip Cohen, a demographer at the University of Maryland, refused a request from the Israel Science Foundation to review a research proposal. As he wrote on his blog, “I believe the international community cannot permit the normalization of relations with the State of Israel in light of its actions in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7.”

Business Insider, June 13, 2024, Falling birth rates are freaking countries out and spawning dubious fixes like tax breaks, cheaper cars, and free surgery

Philip N. Cohen, a family demographer at the University of Maryland, told BI that these policies often have unintended effects. He said that in some circumstances, parents don't end up having more kids; instead, they use generous leave provisions like paid time off and universal childcare to space out having fewer children so they benefit more.

Haaretz, April 12, 2024, 'I Won't Work With You. You're Committing Genocide': Israeli Academia Faces an Unprecedented Global Boycott

Philip Cohen wrote, “In the absence of responsible state action by your government (or ours), I must instead do what I can to contribute to the diplomatic, political, and even scientific isolation of the state… I don't know if my peers in Israel understand the extent of their global isolation.”

Financial Times, April 11, 2024, Defiant Israel seeks to tough out intensifying international criticism

US demographer Philip Cohen announced last month he had refused to review a grant proposal sent to him for evaluation by the non-profit Israel Science Foundation in protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Retraction Watch, January 22, 2024, Sociology journal’s entire editorial board resigns after Springer Nature appointed new leadership

In a blog post, a sociologist at the University of Maryland described a recent paper by Turner as “a White-male-grievance monument to laziness and entitlement. … For both the way Springer handled it, and because of Turner’s attitude and the journal’s stated mission, I won’t be submitting to or reviewing for the journal (which, granted, I have yet to ever do, anyway), and suggest others follow suit,” Philip N. Cohen wrote.

People, January 19, 2024, Lauren Boebert Blames Nation’s Falling Birth Rate on Abortion, Overlooking Data That Says Otherwise

Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, told Vox that the “opportunity cost” of having a child has grown in modern times. “People, especially women, have more lucrative things to do," he said.

New York Times, November 29, 2023, U.S. Life Expectancy Creeps Up as Covid Deaths Fall

And many of the deaths in the United States are “in theory, wholly preventable,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist and demographer at the University of Maryland. “It’s still violence and alcohol and suicide and homicide, accidents and especially opioids.” … “The U.S. is not doing its job when it comes to public health,” Dr. Cohen said.

Smithsonian Magazine, November 17, 2023, Women Now Live Nearly Six Years Longer Than Men in the United States

“These trends should be a wake-up call that we can’t coast along toward better and longer lives,” Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who did not contribute to the findings, tells Scientific American. “We need real, substantial and sustained attention to public health and health care in this country—and we need it yesterday.”

Scientific American, November 14, 2023, Why the Life Expectancy Gap between Men and Women Is Growing

A greater number of COVID deaths among men was a big part of the “deeply troubling” drop in life expectancy and widening gender gap, says Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, who was not involved in the study. “But this report underscores some underlying public health problems that also disproportionately affect men, especially drug overdoses, suicide and other violence.”

Fortune, October 8, 2023, Some Gen Z women are rejecting the corporate ladder to embrace their stay-at-home-girlfriend or wife status as aspirational

“They can promote this lifestyle [of women staying at home], but that lifestyle didn’t reproduce itself for one generation. The children raised in those kinds of families in the 1950s did not adopt the lifestyle themselves,” Cohen says. “It has totally failed as a lifestyle in terms of dominating the culture.”

Yahoo! News, September 26, 2023, Why experts say two-parent families are the key to fighting inequality

“Most people would rather have and raise children in two-parent families, and the best way to help them do that — and other things they might choose to do — is to reduce incarceration, increase access to affordable housing, and provide people with comprehensive, guaranteed health care. A policy to promote two-parent families is a proven failure, but providing for people’s needs is good.” — Philip Cohen, sociologist at the University of Maryland

USA Today, September 22, 2023, How the Supreme Court could alter the way Americans interact on the internet

Looking back on it, Philip Cohen takes a measure of pride in the fact that he was blocked by the former president of the United States. But in that moment in 2017, when Cohen pulled up Donald Trump's feed on what was then known as Twitter and realized what happened, he didn't feel smug or vindicated. He felt muted.

Elle, September 14, 2023, Talking about my generation

Of course, many researchers believe that generational labels simply aren’t useful. And, in fact, the creation of ‘micro-generations’ like Zennials seems to highlight the arbitrariness of the whole concept of a generation. In 2021, the American sociologist Philip Cohen, even wrote an open letter calling on the Pew Research Center, one of America’s main polling organisations, to abandon generational labels altogether.

Business Insider, July 26, 2023, Why we all love to hate other generations

Artificial or not, generational tensions have calcified into easy shorthand for advertisers, writers, and consultants. Popular reporting on generations tends to fill in information gaps with generalizations that flatten the various groups into catchphrases. But Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, suggests this troublesome reflex can't necessarily be chalked up to cynicism or malice — at least, not entirely.

Glamour, June 27, 2023: Gender-Neutral Baby Names Celebrities Have Used That Are Just Beautiful

While the trend of giving traditional baby boy names to baby girls has been happening for a while, it seems more and more parents are avoiding gendered monikers altogether. The use of gender-neutral names is at an all-time high, according to research from sociologist Philip Cohen at the University of Maryland at College Park, and has been rising quickly in the past few years.

The Dispatch, June 24, 2023: What Makes Gen Z Tick?

Pew Research Center’s decision did not come as a complete surprise. In 2021, Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, sent a letter to Pew signed by more than 150 social scientists critical of the methodology behind contemporary generational research.

Fortune, June 17, 2023: Pew Research Center is tired of blaming Gen Z and millennials for everything—it’s retiring the whole concept of generational framing

One of the most notable voices against generational labels is University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen. In 2021, he drafted an open letter to Pew signed by demographers and social scientists urging the organization to give up on labels such as Gen X, millennial and Gen Z because they were “arbitrary” and had “no scientific basis.”

Scientific American, May 26, 2023: The Pandemic Caused a Baby Boom in Red States and a Bust in Blue States

Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, who was not involved in the study, says that the conclusion that the political climate and the response to the pandemic would affect fertility rates is “very reasonable” but that the interpretation is somewhat complicated. “I hesitate to put too much weight on the conclusion.”

Washington Post, May 25, 2023: America aged rapidly in the last decade as baby boomers grew older and births dropped

“In the short run, the crisis of work-family balance, the lack of affordable child care, stresses associated with health care, housing, and employment stability, all put a damper on birth rates by increasing uncertainty and making it harder to decide to have and raise children,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “In the long run, immigration is the only way the United States is going to avoid population decline.”

CNN, May 10, 2023: Zillennials: The newest micro-generation has a name

Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, calls generational labels meaningless. “Marketers and fadfluencers will want to be the first to name a ‘generation’ or ‘microgeneration’ for clicks and followers,” Cohen wrote via email. “But it is meaningless to do so before we know what it is we’re studying and why. Social science does not pay much attention to the discourse over ‘generations’ because it is mostly superficial hype.”

The Globe and Mail, April 21, 2023: Policies that make it easier to be a parent won’t actually help people become parents

It’s time to stop thinking about falling fertility and people without children as a problem. As the sociologist Philip Cohen suggested in The New York Times in 2021, rather than trying to “fix” our fertility rate, there is a better, possibly more effective option that is also definitely more morally sound: “create conditions that allow people to control their fertility, and have children if they want to.”

Vogue, March 26, 2023: Have Babies Become a Luxury Item?

“Inequality is getting worse and worse, so the stakes of parenting are getting higher, and so the risk of blowing it and having your kid end up on the wrong side of a yawning inequality divide are increasing,” says [Philip] Cohen.

The Atlantic, March 21, 2023: The Rise of Gender-Neutral Names Isn’t What It Seems

The rise of gender-neutral names has been particularly notable in the past few years, but the shift has been a long time coming, according to Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Five Thirty Eight, February 14, 2023: Americans Are Increasingly Single And OK With It

In the past, women might have married because of a need for financial stability, said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, who studies families. “It’s an advantage to not need to be married, in terms of economics or social pressure,” he said. “People can improve their career status and happiness on their own terms, and they can set the terms for potential mates in the future.”

Scripps News, February 13, 2023: Why are fertility rates declining?

Demographers like Philip Cohen say women may also be choosing to have fewer children because of increased access to education and wanting to be financially secure when they start having kids. "They want to wait until their careers are more established. They're married often or in a stable partnership or have the resources, a home, a job," Cohen said. 

CQ Researcher, January 27, 2023: Deaths of Despair: Why are so many Americans without college degrees dying prematurely?

“When we compare people who are married, and people who are not, and we see all the ways that people who are married are doing better — happier, healthier, richer, you know — in all these ways,” says University of Maryland sociologist Cohen. “It's quite possible, and we have evidence for this, that marriage is helping married people improve their lives.”

Time, January 24, 2023: Parents Say It's More Important for Their Kids to Make Money Than to Start Families

Another finding in the Pew survey is that most parents are not particularly bothered about pressing their religious and political beliefs onto their children, preferring to emphasize ethical and honest behavior and the acceptance of people who are different from them. “The intergenerational transmission of traditions seems to have really slipped here,” says Cohen. “Marriage and children are a way of carrying forward the family tradition, and so is religion.”

Views on First (podcast), January 13, 2023: Episode 1: What happens when social media collides with the First Amendment?

I said: "The process both gave me sort of a childlike glee and excitement about the Constitution, which is nice to have, but also a grownup cynicism about just how precarious the infrastructure for our political discourse is."

PNAS Journal Club, December 23, 2022: COVID-19 increases pregnancy risks. Poorer communities shoulder most of the burden

Although statistical studies can’t tease out the molecular mechanisms by which COVID-19 infections cause pre-term births, a physically stressed pregnancy is known to lead to early delivery. “We’ve seen it with other infectious diseases,” notes sociologist Philip Cohen at the University of Maryland, College Park. “We saw it with Zika.”

BBC Family Tree, December 14, 2022: Time to end Santa's 'naughty list'?

"Do you have seven-year-old kids who can see inequality all around them who still believe that Santa gives you presents based on your moral worth? That would be teaching well-off children that they're getting what they deserve, because they're good, and the poor children are getting what they deserve, because they're not good. That just seems like a corrosive lesson for them."

Scientific American, October 17, 2022: The U.S. Just Lost 26 Years’ Worth of Progress on Life Expectancy

“This isn’t supposed to happen,” says Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, who studies demographic trends and inequality. “I think it’s a wake-up call for us ... that we can’t put public health on autopilot; that we don’t have this invisible hand of development just raising living standards over time.”

Wired, June 24, 2022: Roe Stood for 49 Years. It Revolutionized Life for Women.

“The ability to determine the timing of your childbearing is a pillar of the modern family,” says Philip N. Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland... “Abortion rights are central to women’s progress, and are part of a package of self-determination and autonomy that are foundational to women’s lives.”

Barron’s, June 6, 2022, p. 19: The Wedding Boom and the Baby Bust

The baby bump in 2021 was probably not enough to make up for the lost births from the prior two years, says University of Maryland demographer Philip Cohen. … Uncertainty seems to be playing a big role in keeping couples from having children, Cohen adds. People are reluctant to make long-term commitments when they feel the future is too unpredictable.

Deseret News, June 5, 2022: Are fatherlessness and societal breakdown to blame for mass shootings?

“Conservatives who talk about family structure, fatherlessness or mental health after mass shootings are simply not serious,” said Philip N. Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. “No serious policy analyst considers these actionable causes of America’s unique problem of mass shootings.

The Takeaway, May 20, 2022: Deep Dive: Generation Z

I said: those kids who were born in the fifties and sixties – more than any generation before them — were the most likely to live in isolated nuclear families with stay at home mothers and employed fathers who married at a young age. And that goes across races and classes more than it ever did before. That group of young people did not practice what they experienced as children. They saw that style of family life, and they did not emulate it.

New England Cable News, May 16, 2022: More Women Choosing to Have Kids Later in Life

I said: When you look at what has happened since the recession in 2008, the decline in birth was pretty dramatic, but it was all in women under age 35. When you're only planning to have one or two children, you can move when that happens, you can delay it by ten years and still hit your target of one or two children. So the ground has shifted on these decisions.

Associated Press, May 6, 2022: Motherhood deferred: US median age for giving birth hits 30

Decisions by college-educated women to invest in their education and careers so they could be better off financially when they had children, as well as the desire by working-class women to wait until they were more financially secure, have contributed to the shift toward older motherhood, said Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist. … “Having children later mostly puts women in a better position,” Cohen said. “They have more resources, more education. The things we demand of people to be good parents are easier to supply when you are older.”

El País, February 10, 2022: La ivermectina en México, un conflicto entre la ciencia y la política [archived, with translation]

Para Cohen va más allá de una disputa por la terminología. El académico defiende que no llamarlo experimento ni ensayo clínico es una forma de no tener que pasar por ciertos protocolos de investigación y que el conflicto de intereses persiste porque los autores “son juez y parte” al buscar que los resultados sean favorables.

Toronto Star, February 10, 2022: Mexico went all in on ivermectin — a disproven COVID cure. Now there’s a fight over ‘false and misleading science’ and claims of ‘colonialist’ politics [archived]

Philip Cohen says he wasn’t looking for controversy, just compiling an annual report. He runs a pre-print server — an open archive where social-science researchers share preliminary versions of manuscripts. He thought he’d see what the most viewed paper of the year was. “I didn’t like what I found. I had a look at it, and it was troublesome.”

Washington Post, February 9, 2022: Mexico City gave ivermectin to thousands of covid patients. Officials face an ethics backlash

What was most worrisome to Cohen is that the 10,000 downloads were probably not by scientists pondering the program’s merits. “We thought the paper was being used to spread misinformation,” Cohen said.

Washington Post, February 9, 2022: Opinion: Mexico City’s decision to distribute ivermectin marked a new low for pandemic mismanagement

Just three days later, the site withdrew the work and excoriated its authors for “spreading misinformation,” “unethically” dispensing “unproven medication” and failing to “properly disclose their conflict of interest.” Merino reacted furiously, accusing Philip Cohen, the site’s founding director, of acting from political motivation and being “unethical” and “colonialist.”

Mexico News Daily, February 8, 2022: Mexico City government criticized for providing ivermectin to treat COVID

American sociologist Philip N. Cohen, said in a statement last Friday … that SocArXiv’s steering committee had decided to withdraw the paper due to various concerns about it, among which was that it was “spreading misinformation [and] promoting an unproved medical treatment in the midst of a global pandemic.”

Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2022: Gobierno mexicano critica “campaña de ataques” por uso de la ivermectina

El director de SocArXiv, Philip N. Cohen, explicó que la Agencia Digital de Innovación Pública (ADIP) del Gobierno presuntamente “reclutó sin ética a sujetos experimentales, aparentemente sin su consentimiento informado, y por lo tanto es un estudio antiético.”

El Financiero, February 7, 2022: Quihúbole con la Ivermectina y el informe de CDMX sobre su uso en casos de COVID-19

Tras el anuncio de que se dio de baja de SocArXiv el ensayo, José Merino compartió en sus redes sociales una carta de respuesta a Philip N. Cohen, funaddor de la plataforma.

The Atlantic, February 4, 2022: The Age of the Unique Baby Name

As family sizes shrunk and kids stopped doing labor, Americans “started to fixate on the uniqueness of each child,” as the sociologist Philip Cohen has written, and “individuality emerged as a project—starting with naming—of creating an identity.”

Capital-CDMX, February 4, 2022: Falso y engañoso estudio del GobCDMX sobre Ivermectina para tratar Covid

Desde Estados Unidos, el comité directivo de la plataforma SocArXiv, calificó de “falso y engañoso” un estudio del gobierno de Claudia Sheinbaum sobre el uso de Ivermectina para tratar pacientes Covid. Por esa razón, el director de SocArXiv Philip N Cohen anunció el retiro del paper que el propio gobierno de Claudia Sheinbaum difundió en SocArXiv.

Animal Politico, February 1, 2022: Gobierno de la CDMX gastó 29 mdp en tratamiento con ivermectina no autorizado contra COVID

El 8 de diciembre de 2021 el fundador y director del sitio, Philip N. Cohen, sociólogo y demógrafo, publicó una nota aclaratoria bajo el título “Cuando SocArXiv tiene malos papers”, en la que tacha de engañoso al análisis hecho por las autoridades capitalinas. “Dependiendo de la crítica que prefiera, el artículo es de muy mala calidad o deliberadamente falso y engañoso”, afirma Philip N. Cohen.

Arirang Global Insight, December 7, 2021: South Korea, U.S. hit record low birthrates in 2020

I said: You won’t see the impacts of population decline for quite a while. In the United States we might not even have population decline if we continue have the level of immigration we had in previous years. Some countries have an easy solution to the problem of population decline because there is a large demand of immigrants who want to move there.

KARE11, November 22, 2021: Pandemic 'baby bust' confirmed

I said: We tend to think in really practical terms. Oh, it must be the cost of children, it must be the cost of housing, it must be difficulty finding a partner, and I think this is really interesting because it shows that desired number of children may be going down also. … It doesn’t mean people love children less if they want to have one instead of two, it signifies a changing ideal family structure and set of relations that people want to have in their lives.

Bloomberg Opinion, November 17, 2021: Grown Kids Still Stuck at Home? Change Is on the Horizon

Still, you might think that 42.8% of 18-to-29-year-olds living in their childhood bedrooms or maybe the basement — which is the September percentage estimated by University of Maryland sociology professor Philip N. Cohen from Census Bureau data — sounds like a lot. And yes, by the standards of the six decades preceding the Great Recession, it really is.

Maryland Today, November 10, 2021: 6 Reasons to Drop the Generation Labels

From avocado toast aficionados to “Reality Bites” slackers to tech-native TikTokkers, there’s no shortage of generalities ascribed to people based on which so-called generation they belong to: silent, greatest, X, millennial, Z or whatever comes next. According to UMD sociology Professor Philip N. Cohen, they’re also completely meaningless.

San Francisco Chronicle, November 1, 2021: How is the pandemic changing births in California?

…according to Philip Cohen, a sociologist and demographer at the University of Maryland who’s studied the impact of COVID-19 on births nationwide. “By late 2020, we were scratching our heads and saying, ‘how could births already be lower in July and August when the pandemic didn’t get started until March?’” Cohen told The Chronicle.

BYU Radio, October 26, 2021: Should We Ditch Generation Nicknames?

You got baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, and now Gen Z. … Boomers are stodgy. Gen Xers are slackers. Millennials are entitled. But none of that is real. … And there are plenty of social science researchers who think they’re not very helpful, and might even be harmful. Philip Cohen is one such social scientist. Based at the University of Maryland, he posted an open letter earlier this year pleading for researchers to stop using the generational labels and received a lot of media for doing so.

The Atlantic, October 14, 2021: ‘Gen Z’ Only Exists in Your Head

You know there’s drama in research circles—or at least what qualifies as drama in research circles—when someone writes an open letter. Earlier this year, that someone was Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland at College Park. His request: that Pew Research Center, the nonpartisan “fact tank,” “do the right thing” and stop using generational labels such as Gen Z and Baby Boomers in its reports. Some 170 social-science researchers signed on to Cohen’s letter, which argued that these labels were arbitrary and counterproductive.

New York Times, October 13, 2021: Of 4 Family Policies in Democrats’ Bill, Which Deserves Priority?

Public preschool for children ages 3 and 4 was the winner in our panel, with half the experts choosing it… Philip Cohen: “You shouldn’t have to be single, or poor, to be compensated by society for raising children.”

Time, October 6, 2021: Men Are Now More Likely to Be Single Than Women. It's Not a Good Sign

“It’s not that marriage is making people be richer than it used to, it’s that marriage is becoming an increasingly elite institution, so that people are are increasingly only getting married if they already have economic advantages,” says Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Scientific American, August 30, 2021: The Pandemic Caused a Baby Bust, Not a Boom

[Philip] Cohen’s own research, described in a recent preprint study that has not yet been peer-reviewed, has shown that Florida and Ohio experienced birth-rate declines during the pandemic. He found steeper drop-offs in counties that experienced greater numbers of COVID cases and lower levels of mobility.

The Atlantic, August 18, 2021: Amazon Killed the Name Alexa

“We don’t usually think about the individuals who are already born when this happens, but the impact on their lives is real as well,” Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland at College Park, told me. Sharing a name with a robot can be tiresome.

Cleveland.com, August 2, 2021: Expected COVID-19 baby boom went bust, but Ohio’s birth rate shows signs of recovering

The pandemic related baby boom that everyone expected was a bust initially, but things just might be on the rebound with an uptick of births in Ohio. Birth rates in Ohio and a handful of other states hit the lowest point around January, and there’s been some rebound since then, said Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland.

Chasing Life, with Dr. Sanjay Gupta (CNN), July 13, 2021: Let’s Talk About Making Babies (Or Deciding Not To)

Given the global pandemic, for demographers like Philip Cohen of the University of Maryland, [the fertility decline in 2020] isn’t too surprising. “What we’ve learned in the last century or so, is that when there are crises birth rates go down,” he said.

Please, Go On, with James Hohmann (Washington Post), July 9, 2021: Sociologist Philip N. Cohen says generation labels are meaningless — and we should quit using them

Marketers love them. Journalists often use them. But do generation labels like "baby boomer" and "millennial" mean anything? Cohen, who researches social identity, says no — and he and other sociologists want the Pew Research Center to stop using them.

CGTN, June 12, 2021: U.S. birth falls to record low in 2020

Philip Cohen said: “The long term direction is still obviously toward lower birthrates. It’s just a question of how low, and will we be able to manage it.”

Washington Post, May 5, 2021: U.S. birthrate falls to its lowest level in decades in wake of pandemic

“Some of the things that might be driving down birthrates in the long run — like economic insecurity, the cost of health care, housing, child care and education, and our awful work-family policies — are probably things that were exacerbated in the last year,” Cohen said.

San Francisco Chronicle, April 26, 2021: Pandemic baby bust unprecedented in Bay Area, California history

One thing is clear: The effects of the COVID baby bust will reverberate for years, possibly for generations. “It’s going to take a while to figure this out, but there’s no way of getting around that this is a very large-scale event,” Cohen said. “We’ll be living with the consequences of this for some time.”

Business Insider, April 19, 2021: Despite right-wing panic about the plummeting birthrate, Republicans are lining up against Biden's pro-family 'human infrastructure' push

"Things like healthcare and education and housing ... that would make the future more secure, especially for people at the lower end, those are the pressing issues both whether you're trying to increase the birthrate or whether you're just trying to make life better," said Cohen, the UMD sociologist.

BBC News, March 18, 2021: Covid: From boom to bust - why lockdown hasn't led to more babies

"Having seen how bad the pandemic was I'm not surprised," says Philip N Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. "But it is still just shocking to see something like this happen in real time."

Romper, March 9, 2021: The Existential Crisis Of Pregnancy Now

Data collated by Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, shows that California, for example, saw a 10% fall in birth rates in December 2020 compared with the same time in 2019.

CBS News, March 2, 2021: The COVID baby boom is looking more like a baby bust

"The scale of this is really large," Cohen said in a telephone interview with CBS News. "Regardless of whether you think it's good or bad to have a lot of children, the fact that we're suddenly having fewer means things are not going well for a lot of people."

Public Health On Call, February 24, 2021: The Pandemic “Baby Bust”: The Disruption of COVID-19

While some predicted that lockdowns in the US might lead to a baby boom, the reality is that COVID-19 seems to be impacting demographics more like a disaster or a recession than a snowstorm. Sociologist Dr. Philip Cohen talks with Stephanie Desmon about the pandemic’s effects on babies, marriages, and divorces, some unique methods of predicting trends, and the likely demographic effects of a situation that’s “exacerbating every kind of inequality we see.”

Evan Solomon Show, February 24, 2021: Pandemic hasn't led to a Baby Boom...it's causing a 'Baby Bust'

Evan Solomon speaks about the lower birthrate during the pandemic and what some are calling a 'pandemic Baby Bust' with Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland.

New York Times, February 17, 2021: Would Americans Have More Babies if the Government Paid Them?

“Much better, more effective and better for human rights is to create conditions that allow people to control their fertility, and have children if they want to,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist studying demographics at the University of Maryland.

BBC Outside Sources, February 2, 2021: Pandemic Baby Bust

Philip Cohen: “If you don’t know where you’re going to be living, or your income, or your health status, or your relatives’ health status, or your schooling - or all the things that go into these calculations - any kind of uncertainty leads people to pull off from the commitments they do have control over.”

Bloomberg, February 1, 2021: Pandemic Baby Boom Turned Out to Be Bust Despite Lockdown

“These are, to put it mildly, very larges declines in historical terms,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland.

WBUR Here & Now, January 27, 2021: Demographer Says Initial Data Shows A Pandemic 'Baby Bust,' Not A 'Baby Boom'

“If I think declining births is a problem, it's mostly because it signals there are people who are unhappy and that that unhappiness is unequally spread,” [Cohen] says. “So the people who are having a hard time right now — whose businesses are closed, whose jobs are lost, whose housing or health care is precarious — those people aren't able to have the life they wanted.”

KARE11, January 26, 2021: The pandemic baby boom that never was

“Any time there's a lot of uncertainty, 'Where are we gonna be next year? Are we going to have jobs? Are we going to be safe? Are we going to be taking care of our elderly relatives?' Healthcare, housing, some evicted, losing jobs, family members sick, any source of uncertainty like that will increase the likelihood that people are going to back off from a long term decision," Cohen said.

Yahoo! Finance, January 25, 2021: It Sure Looks Like We're in a COVID Baby Bust

Stress could have also played a role in the declining birth rate. According to Cohen, “If you were pregnant in December or January and then had a huge stressful event in February and March, it’s possible people had more miscarriages.”

NBCLX, January 25, 2021: There's No Coronavirus Baby Boom — It's More Like a Baby Bust

“People make long-term decisions when they have confidence about the future, and if there's anything that undermines confidence about the future, it's this massive pandemic,” Cohen said.

Bloomberg, January 12, 2021: U.S. Population Is Growing at Slowest Pace Since World War II

Some analysts predict the coronavirus recession will depress births even further, possibly by as much as half a million. In 2021, rates will likely be “shockingly low,” Philip Cohen, sociologist at the University of Maryland, said in a blog post.

Swedish Public Radio, P3 Dystopia (podcast), January 6, 2021: Manskrisen - Incels och utanförskap (The male crisis - Incels and exclusion)

I said: “If we made the consequences of failure, the consequences of marginalization much less, than I think the volume of the backlash goes way down. It becomes not a life-or-death struggle, but a struggle within the realm of reasonable politics — I think we could handle that a lot better.”

USA Today, December 16, 2020: COVID baby boom? No, 2020 triggered a baby bust - and that will have lasting impacts

"There's kind of a naïve view that birth results from just putting men and women in a room together, but that's not really the way it works in modern society," said Philip N. Cohen, professor of sociology and demographer at the University of Maryland, College Park, pointing to both extensive conversations couples have when planning children and the high rate of pregnancies across the country that are unintended.

New York Times, December 14, 2020: The number of people with the virus who died in the U.S. passes 300,000

Black Americans from ages 30 to 49 died at nearly six times the rate of white people in the same age group, while Hispanic people died at nearly seven time the rate of white people in the same age group, according to an analysis by Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist.

BNN Bloomberg, December 5, 2020: Even Before Covid 2,600 People a Week Were Leaving New York City

Some effects of the pandemic may stretch from coast to coast. For example, Philip Cohen -- a sociology professor at the University of Maryland -- points to early indications of a coming decline in births. Monthly data in California and Florida suggests they’re trailing prior years.

The Atlantic, November 24, 2020: Here Comes the COVID-19 Baby Bust

“It might actually be that we were already heading for a record drop in births this year,” [Philip Cohen] said. “If that's the case, then birth rates in 2021 are probably going to be even more shockingly low.”

Christian Science Monitor, November 17, 2020: Spawned by the pandemic, digital nomads are redefining ‘home’

Dr. Cohen has also found an educational and racial breakdown. Workers still physically tied to their workplace are, on the whole, less educated and less white than the group that is working remotely. They are also more likely to lose – or have lost – their jobs.

Bloomberg, October 9, 2020: Disinformation Has Neighbors Fighting in Small-Town America

“Political conflicts in families are already bad enough, because the emotions are intense and there’s so much personal history,” says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “Adding disinformation to the mix—which is literally designed to increase conflict and polarization—is a recipe for trouble.”

Time, October 7, 2020: Would You Date Someone With Different Political Beliefs? Here’s What a Survey of 5,000 Single People Revealed

“Rising partisanship may be a relatively recent phenomenon, jet-propelled by Trump’s entry into politics,” says [Philip] Cohen. “But it is primed by the long-term trend toward partnerships that are emotionally as well as sexually and financially fulfilling.”

The Atlantic, September 22, 2020: The Rise of the Three-Parent Family

It’s unclear how common third-parent adoption—in any of its incarnations—could become.  Still, the increasing visibility and legalization of three-parent arrangements “is one of the signs that our definition of family is opening up,” [Philip] Cohen, from the University of Maryland, told me.

San Jose Mercury News, September 13, 2020: Coronavirus: Six Months After Sheltering, Why Things Fell Apart

Such decentralized authority only works if local officials have strong guidance and support, said Philip Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park. In more rural areas, he said, counties “just don’t have the infrastructure, the personnel, the experience or the resources to deal with the pandemic.”

Bloomberg, September 2, 2020: The Big-City Exodus Isn’t Very Big (Yet)

Another form of urban (and college-town) flight has involved students and young workers moving back in with their parents after the pandemic struck. Nationwide there are 2.7 million such individuals, University of Maryland sociologist Philip N. Cohen has estimated on the basis of data from the Current Population Survey (which the Census Bureau conducts every month for the Bureau of Labor Statistics) that shows 48.7% of 18- to 29-year-olds living with parents or grandparents in July, up from 43% in February.

Intelligencer, July 8, 2020: COVID Has Sent Millions of Adult Zoomers Back Home

The number of American adults under 30 living with their parents in the U.S. is nearly 3 million higher today than it would have been absent the pandemic, according to an analysis from University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen.

Bloomberg, July 7, 2020: More U.S. Young Adults Return Home as Pandemic Reduces Options

“If 2020 was like the previous three years, I would expect there to be 21.9 million of them living with their parents. Instead there are 24.8 million living at home, an increase of 2.9 million from the expected number,” according to a Monday blog post by Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland.

Inside Higher Ed, May 26, 2020: Social Scientists on COVID-19

Through his own rural transmission tracking, Cohen said he found evidence of “degraded health systems, underfunded local health departments, understaffed local newspapers and communities heavily dependent on major institutions,” such as prisons and pork plants. “And of course our lack of universal health care and our grotesquely ineffective federal response reveal fundamental weaknesses with the status quo before the epidemic,” he added.

Rolling Stone, May 21, 2020: With Couples Rethinking Children, We Might See the Opposite of a COVID-19 Baby Boom

But Japan is an extreme example, says Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, and the U.S. population would have to experience a steep decline over a number of decades for this to pose a problem. “I’m in the camp of people who think we shouldn’t care that much” about a decline in births, he says. But there is a caveat: “If your population is declining it can be an indicator that things are wrong. It might mean people don’t have work-family balance or educate their kids or have health care or have housing.”

Bloomberg, May 20, 2020: U.S. 2019 Births Fall for Fifth Consecutive Year to 35-Year Low

“In the long run low fertility might mean the population will grow smaller, but it takes a generation or two,” said Philip Cohen, professor at the University of Maryland. “During the pandemic, I would expect pregnancy rates, and then birth rates, to fall as people interact less and postpone making long-term commitments and investments.”

US News and World Report, April 29, 2020: U.S. Marriage Rate Hits Historic Low

“The fear will be that declining marriage is bad for society, for people’s health and well-being,” Cohen says. “I think it’s mostly the other way around – that is, the way our society is working, people are more likely to get married when things are going well for them. And so it may be an indicator of problems in society, but I don’t think it’s a cause of problems in society.”

Vox, April 21, 2020: The coronavirus pandemic has people rethinking their plans for having kids

The threat of the coronavirus has produced worry and uncertainty for everyone, but “that instability and insecurity that people feel is very inequitably distributed,” Cohen said. “The professionals who are staying home and working from home and the working-class people who are in front-line jobs of various kinds are just having a very different experience right now.”

The Hill, April 13, 2020: Domestic violence cases surge amid stay-at-home orders

“Not only are many people confined to their homes, but they are also experiencing stressors that are known to increase the risk of violence, especially job loss and health problems,” said Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland. “People at risk of abuse might not have access to the supports and services they might normally have been able to take advantage of.”

USA Today, April 2, 2020: Will coronavirus cause a baby boom, or is that just a myth? Prepare for jokes, if not babies!

A coronavirus baby boom is “very unlikely,” agrees Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland who specializes in family structure, marriage and divorce. Even if people cooped up had sex more often, he says, frequency isn’t what counts – it’s contraception.

Yahoo! Lifestyle, February 27, 2020: Netflix’s Love Is Blind has the opportunity to be the first inclusive dating show—but it fails

Sociologist Philip Cohen informed The New York Times that first-marriage rate for disabled people ages 18 to 49 in the U.S. is about half that of non-disabled people: 24.4 per 1,000, compared to 48.9 per 1,000.

Maryland Today, February 3, 2020: Access Agility

According to recent reports, the administration is weighing an order to make publications freely available immediately, instead of allowing journals to initially charge for access. … Cohen, who is still tangling with Trump in court over Twitter, spoke to Maryland Today about the ins and outs of access.

New York Times, January 24, 2020: She’s the Next President. Wait, Did You Read That Right?

And while, over the years, words like “mailman,” “policeman” and “stewardess” have been replaced with terms like “mail carrier,” “police officer” and “flight attendant,” there are still plenty of phrases for which “he” connotes power. Think “manning the command post,” “maestro” or even “guy” as a way to describe expertise. “As in, ‘He’s a stats guy’ or ‘He’s a policy guy,’” said Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland.

Inside Hook, January 23, 2020: Will Millennials Break the Divorce Trend in America?

Much has been made in recent years of millennials’ role in the great divorce decline, with tongue-in-cheek accusations accusing millennials of “killing divorce” fueled largely by University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen’s popular analysis in the report, “The Coming Divorce Decline.”

1A, January 21, 2020: Splitting Up, But In It Together: Divorce In 2020

The way divorce happens is changing. More couples are turning to mediation. Long and complex court cases are less common. And arrangements like half-and-half child custody are becoming more popular. Guests: Philip Cohen, Jacqueline Newman, Lyz Lenz.

Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2019: How the Definition of an American Family Has Changed

“That dominant model declined, but it’s not like it was replaced by one thing,” says Philip Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. “It was replaced by a peacock’s tail, a plethora of different arrangements.”

Inside Higher Ed, October 23, 2019: Where Research Meets Profits

As for paying peer reviewers, Cohen said they already are compensated -- in the form of their college or university salaries. That just turns out to be a “large, invisible subsidy” to publishers.

Lansing State Journal, October 21, 2019: Divorce filings are down 18% in Michigan. What does this mean for your relationship?

“Younger people today are less likely to get married than they were before, and when they do, they marry later on average,” said Philip Cohen, a researcher and sociology professor at the University of Maryland, who studies marriage and divorce trends. “They are also more likely to have higher education when they marry. These factors contribute to the falling divorce rate.”

Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2019: #ItsOver: Going Through a Divorce on Social Media

“Divorce can be perceived as a failure if you’ve amped your wedding up to such a degree,” says Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist and the author of The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change. “In the past, marriage was universal and divorce prohibited but today, both are highly optional. People have more choices in their lives but the more choices we have, the more we feel compelled to justify them. With social media, everyone has their own brand and I’d speculate that this means the stakes of divorce would be increased.”

Inside Higher Ed, August 26, 2019: Questionable rejection

What is the purpose of a preprint repository such as a SocArXiv and how does it differ from that of a traditional publication? Can, and should, the two systems really coexist? Philip Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park and a member of SocArXiv’s steering committee, said that he and his collaborators designed the platform “not to replace journals but to supplement them.”si

NPR All Things Considered, August 6, 2019: Less Sex, Fewer Babies: Blame The Internet And Career Priorities

Immigrants tend to be younger — the kind of workers aging economies need — and new immigrants often have birthrates that are higher than those of the native-born population. “We should not worry about the birthrate in the United States,” says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “If we want to let those people come to this country, we can solve any problem you can think of related to population size.”

Inside Higher Ed, August 6, 2019: Abstract ‘Spin’

A common way that sociologists inflate research findings in general is to mention those that are not statistically significant while downplaying the lack of significance, attributing it to a small sample or using phrases such as “does not reach statistical significance,” Cohen said, “as if the effect is just trying but can’t quite get there.”

Politifact, August 2, 2019: Fact-checking the Joe Biden, Kirsten Gillibrand spat over 1980s child care tax credit vote

While Biden didn’t single out working mothers for the deterioration of families, his comments about couples using day care and averting responsibility to care for their children could be interpreted as a criticism of women who went to work, said University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen, who researches family structure. Of stay-at-home parents, 94% were women, Cohen said.

Various, July 10, 2019: Victory in the Second Circuit on Trump Twitter lawsuit

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided in our favor in Knight Institute v. Trump, upholding the decision of from the U.S. District Court that President Trump violating the First Amendment by blocking me and six other plaintiffs on Twitter. The decision was unanimous among the three judges (two appointed by Republicans, one Democrat), who heard oral arguments in March (available in video here).

Metro UK, June 20, 2019: Will marriage really die out?

‘Dying is a strong way of putting it,’ says Dr Philip Cohen of the University of Maryland’s department of sociology. ‘People have become more selective about marriage.’

Cosmopolitan, May 20, 2019: Young Marrieds Are Staying Married, Thanks to Our Divorced Parents

Then there are those other, higher priorities we have, like paying off student debt and getting comfortable in our careers. From a purely statistical standpoint, checking these off by the time we say “I do” means we’re better poised for marital success than our parents were, explains Philip Cohen, PhD, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and author of The Coming Divorce Decline.

New York Times, March 16, 2019: How Parents Are Robbing Their Children of Adulthood

It’s painful for any parent to watch their child mess up, or not achieve their (or their parents’) goals. Now, however, the stakes are so much higher. “Increasingly, it appears any mistake could be fatal for their class outcome,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist studying parenting and inequality at the University of Maryland.

WAMU, March 5, 2019: The U.S. Is Having Fewer Babies. Women In D.C. Are Having The Fewest.

“It’s very low because the white fertility rate is very low,” says Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. “D.C. black and Hispanic women have birth rates that are very close to their national averages, so it’s really that white number that’s driving down the total.”

Politifact, February 25, 2019: Top reason for having fewer kids? Warren cites child care costs

Cohen told us that plenty of factors play a role. Economic uncertainty, the rising cost of raising children, career demands and family leave policies are all important, he said, “but I don’t have any research to prioritize or rank those things specifically.”

Chronicle of Higher Education, February 18, 2019: As Scholars Are Driven to Less Prestigious Journals, New Measures of Quality Emerge

Philip N. Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland at College Park, has been following this push. But even that more holistic approach still has shortfalls, he says. “It’s sort of like the SAT. You are looking for a measure which works across disciplines or across different contexts.

Agence France Presse, February 9, 2019: The ticking timebomb in the attic of US politicians: the yearbook 

Behavior that today would meet with instant opprobrium would have quite often been unremarkable in the past, noted Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland. The difference these days, he said, is that now “we can force a politician to resign for being racist. That’s progress.”

USA Today, February 8, 2019: Facebook status: Divorced. Why millennials ‘killed’ how you decouple in the digital age

Last year, divorce was added to the graveyard after University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen found that since the 1990s, the prevalence of divorce for people under age 45 has leveled off, whereas it continues to rise for people over 45.

Forbes, February 5, 2019: Scratching The Seven Year Itch With Exotic Romance

According to Philip Cohen, a professor at the University of Maryland, the divorce rate dropped by 18% from 2008-2016. ‘The overall drop has been driven entirely by younger women,’ says Cohen, as women are more likely to have college degrees, less likely to be under age 25, and less likely to have children in the household, all which can affect the risk of divorce.

Daily Mail, January 10, 2019: Fertility rate for white women plummets BELOW the limit needed to maintain the population in every single US state

But Dr. Cohen says he doesn’t want people to be alarmed by the report. “It might make people fear society will stagnate, but we’re a couple of generations away from that,” he said.

Fox News Channel, December 26, 2018: Lower fertility rates and an increase reliance on immigration are changing the demographics of the US population

I said: “One of the reasons people have fewer children is because they’re unsure about the future, they’re unsure about the cost of raising those children, especially the costs of education. And the student loan debt is a huge crisis everybody knows about.”

New York Times, December 25, 2018: The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

“As the gap between rich and poor increases, the cost of screwing up increases,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who studies families and inequality. “The fear is they’ll end up on the other side of the divide.”

Glamour, November 26, 2018: My Millennial Divorce: A Week of Stories That Explore Uncoupling in a Modern World

A September 2018 analysis by University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen found that the the U.S. divorce rate decreased by 18 percent from 2008 to 2016, thanks to millennials. “The overall drop has been driven entirely by younger women,” Cohen writes. The study points out that just-married women are now “more likely to be in their first marriages, more likely to have B.A. degrees or higher education, less likely to be under age 25, and less likely to have [their] own children in the household,” all factors Cohen suggests might affect the risk of divorce.

Cosmopolitan, November 2, 2018: How the Bad Sex Ed You Got in High School Is Still Hurting You

“You’re telling them that the only way to be successful is to delay having children until they’re married,” says sociologist Philip Cohen, PhD, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies social inequality, “but not giving them information on how to do that.”

The Annex, October 30, 2018: Philip Cohen on Keeping Science Open

Joe Cohen talks to Philip Cohen about commercial publishers’ efforts at vertical integration, and concerns about maximizing the openness of science.

Live Science, October 2, 2018: A Physicist Said Women’s Brains Make Them Worse at Physics — Experts Say That’s ‘Laughable’

“It appears that whatever is happening in their education is not propelling or encouraging them to follow up on their interests in math and science,” Cohen said. Further, he said, it would be silly to assume from the available data that women and men start off on equal footing in these careers. “It was just a couple generations ago that these fields were all-male by rule.”

The Coming Divorce Decline, September 15, 2018

My paper, “The Coming Divorce Decline,” was reported on by Bloomberg, the Today show, the Atlantic, Slate, Buzzfeed, and discussed by Rush Limbaugh, the Chicago Tribune, and others.

Bloomberg, August 20, 2018: Hey, Sociologists! Speak Up!

These dissemination tools are used by only a small minority of sociologists, though, and the most sparsely attended session I attended in three-plus days at their annual meeting was the one on “Open Scholarship in Sociology” organized by the University of Maryland’s Philip Cohen, the founder of SocArxiv and one of the discipline’s most prominent social-media voices. This despite the fact that it was great.

New York Times, August 4, 2018: The Age That Women Have Babies:
How a Gap Divides America

“In places where people have children earlier and younger, it doesn’t mean they’re less happy, but they are less gender equal in terms of economics,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist studying families and social inequality at the University of Maryland.

Salt Lake Tribune, August 4, 2018: Girls in polygamous Kingston Group continue to marry as young as 15, records show, sometimes leaving Utah to marry cousins

In an analysis written in 2015, a University of Maryland sociologist [Philip Cohen] found that nationwide 37 percent of people who marry before age 20 divorce in the first 10 years.

Atlantic, July 31, 2018: What Is the ‘Success Sequence’ and Why Do So Many Conservatives Like It?

The success sequence is defined recursively, in that the steps to satisfying it are also the very things that mark what’s considered a successful life. Of course one becomes successful after graduating high school, getting a good job, and marrying—those are how many Americans define success. That’s why Cohen calls it “a meme in search of a policy.”

New York Times Upshot, July 5, 2018: Americans Are Having Fewer Babies. They Told Us Why

“We want to invest more in each child to give them the best opportunities to compete in an increasingly unequal environment,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who studies families and has written about fertility. At the same time, he said, “There is no getting around the fact that the relationship between gender equality and fertility is very strong: There are no high-fertility countries that are gender equal.”

The Guardian, June 11, 2018: Is marriage really on the decline because of men’s cheap access to sex?

“I don’t think people realize the extent to which, in the 1950s, marriage was non-voluntary,” says Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of Enduring Bonds, a book on marriage and inequality.

Piauí (Brazil), May 29, 2018: Trump, Tuiteiro Sub Judice

Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, another of those blocked by the president, said, “Many people assume that we are harassing or abusing the president. But this is not the case. We are exercising what is clearly speech protected by the First Amendment. We are not complaining because we are offended, but because this president is hurting our democratic institutions.”

Terp, May 25, 2018: Tweets as free speech

Cohen, who often tweeted critical memes in response to Trump’s messages at @realDonaldTrump, was blocked by the president in June 2017. He says his responses were an attempt to rally administration opponents and show Trump himself that people are opposed to his agenda. “(Twitter) really is like a public square,” he says. “It’s like the government put up a sign that says, ‘public debate here.’”

Vox, May 22, 2018: The historically low birthrate, explained in 3 charts

“Women want to have a better economic platform from which to launch their families,” said University of Maryland health inequality researcher Philip Cohen. “People who have more to lose invest more in planning and prevention. So the better things are for women, the more they are going to delay their births up to a point and also have fewer births. They have more to lose, they intend to spend more on their children, and the result is fewer children.”

Fortune, May 14, 2018: Fewer Parents Are Naming Baby Girls “Alexa”

There’s no hard proof that the drop-off in girls named Alexa is tied to Amazon—correlation doesn’t equal causation and all that—but it’s a pretty good bet the association dissuaded at least some parents from choosing the name. Some might worry, for instance, the name “Alexa” could invite teasing in the form of bossy orders from other children. The data for “Alexa,” which was spotted by a sociologist at the University of Maryland and reported by Recode.

Recode, May 13, 2018: ‘Alexa’ has become a less popular baby name since Amazon launched Echo

Amazon started widely selling its Echo speaker, voiced by the Star Trek-inspired personal assistant Alexa, in 2015. That year, 6,050 baby girls in the United States were named Alexa, or 311 for every 100,000 female babies born. Since then, the name has declined in popularity 33 percent, according to new data from the Social Security Administration crunched by University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen. Last year, just 3,883 baby girls were named Alexa.

MarketWatch, April 28, 2018: Single motherhood in America declines as unmarried, cohabiting parents soar

“You could look at this as a decline of traditional marriage, but I think it’s better described as an increase in family diversity,” Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and author of “The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change,” told MarketWatch. He said people are marrying later, cohabiting instead of marrying, becoming single parents, or forming blended families. “There’s been an explosion of family diversity in the last half century.”

Daily Stormer (hate site), March 26, 2018: Kike Professor Rails Against “Armed Goyim”

Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, tweeted over the weekend that he is concerned about “armed goyim” in response to an inquiry about why Jews are so aggressively anti-gun. I am fully willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and agree that this was a joke. Sure. Okay. But it is the same kind of joke as when I joke about stuffing Jews into gas chambers.

Various sources, March 9, 2018: Trump Twitter suit argued in federal court

The New York Times, New York magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, wire services, and others report on Knight Institute v. Donald Trump, in which Philip Cohen is one of seven plaintiffs suing the president for blocking the on Twitter. With TV clips.

New York Times, March 1, 2018: When Did Americans Stop Marrying Their Cousins? Ask the World’s Largest Family Tree

“As soon as you start linking these things, your analytical power goes way up — as do privacy risks,” Dr. Cohen said. With any of these efforts, he added, it’s important to insist “that the norms of science, as far as transparency and openness, still apply.”

Parade, December 27, 2017: Americans Enhance Their Clans by Welcoming Exchange Students

The classic nuclear family has blossomed and evolved to include stepparents, multigenerational households, interracial and same-sex marriages, adopted children, single parents and more. As University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen, Ph.D., puts it, “Diversity is the new normal.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 27, 2017: More women with college degrees are marrying men without B.A.’s

In 2016, there were 39 million married American couples aged 18 to 54, according to Philip Cohen, University of Maryland sociologist. The wife married down in 14 percent of the marriages, the husband in 10 percent. That ratio has flipped since 1970, Cohen added, when 10 percent of husbands and 3 percent of wives married down.

NPR All Things Considered, November 7, 2017: First Amendment Advocates Charge Trump Can’t Block Critics On Twitter

Cohen says once he was blocked, his tweets about the president reached fewer people. So he believes the blocking is censoring his ability to criticize the government. Cohen is now one of the plaintiffs in a ground-breaking lawsuit brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Inside Higher Ed, October 25, 2017: A Broadening Battle Over Archives to Share Papers

Cohen said he hoped that AAA’s note would be a “wake-up call” to anthropologists “reminding them of the rights they have signed away” when publishing their work. He noted that the bad press generated by Elsevier’s takeover of SSRN had “led a lot of people to consider nonprofit, open-access alternatives like SocArXiv.”

Inside Higher Ed, October 24, 2017: Peer Review’s Give-and-Take

Cohen further proposed that all reviews be made public, or at least that the option be available. Reviews are scholarly work and should therefore be part of the scholarly record, he said. And making them public would not only help readers get credit for their work but might also push them to write reviews of a higher quality.

Los Angeles Times, October 19, 2017: Divorce was long taboo for Vietnamese immigrants. After years in the U.S., they’re accepting it more

Today, the divorce rate for Vietnamese Americans, while still below the national average, is getting closer. According to a study of U.S. Census data by University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen, there are about 16 divorces per 1,000 marriages among Vietnamese Americans. The national average is 19.

The College Fix, October 19, 2017: U. Maryland professor sues Trump because POTUS blocked him on Twitter

Philip N. Cohen said he was “shocked” upon seeing he was prohibited from viewing the president’s Twitter feed, despite the fact the block came after the prof’s tweet of “Corrupt Incompetent Authoritarian. And then there are the policies. RESIST.”

Cornell Daily Sun, October 18, 2017: Blocked by Trump on Twitter, Ithacan Sues President and White House Aides

Philip N. Cohen is a sociology professor at the University of Maryland who grew up in Ithaca. And on June 6, he joined a relatively exclusively club of people blocked by @realDonaldTrump, the president’s personal Twitter, which more than 40 million users follow.

Daily Mail, October 2, 2017: Rich white men with extreme political views are most likely to have a happy marriage, researchers reveal

When it comes to marriage, wealthy white men with extreme political views are the most likely group to be happy in their situation, according to a new analysis. For the new analysis, University of Maryland sociologist Philip N. Cohen examined data from the General Social Survey, which goes back to 1973.

Bloomberg, October 2, 2017: Rich Men With Extreme Politics Have the Happiest Marriages

What’s souring American marriages? University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen looked for clues by analyzing which Americans are happiest in their marriages.

The Verge, September 21, 2017: The invention of AI ‘gaydar’ could be the start of something much worse

As Philip Cohen, who wrote a blog post critiquing the paper, told The Verge: “People are scared of a situation where you have a private life and your sexual orientation isn’t known, and you go to an airport or a sporting event and a computer scans the crowd and identifies whether you’re gay or straight. But there’s just not much evidence this technology can do that.”

New York Magazine, September 17, 2017: 26 People Who’ve Been Blocked by Trump on Twitter

Philip Cohen @familyunequal: “I get up around 6:30 or 7 in the morning when he does his first tweets, so I got into the habit of responding. I thought of it like holding a sign at a protest. I love the idea that he was annoyed. I’m so happy to see this lawsuit. Norms are not enough — we have to decide what norms we are going to codify as rules.”

Quartz, September 16, 2017: A Stanford scientist says he built a gaydar using “the lamest” AI to prove a point

“We don’t actually have a way to measure the thing we’re trying to explain,” says Philip N. Cohen. “We don’t know who’s gay. We don’t even know what that means. Is it an identity where you stand up and say ‘I am gay,’ is it an underlying attraction, or is it a behavior? If it’s any of those things, it’s not going to be dichotomous.”

Inside Higher Ed, September 12, 2017: How Good Is Your Gaydar? How Good Is Your Science?

Philip Cohen said that scholars today “have to expect blowback when their research becomes public,” since academic research no longer “operates in a separate space from public discourse.” Universities need to protect researchers whose work is attacked, he added, and “to earn that respect, researchers need to behave ethically as well as transparently.”

Inverse, July 20, 2017: Tennessee Judge Reduces Sentences for Inmates Who Get Vasectomies

“Without making too much of one crackpot judge,” Cohen said, “it does show a whole way of thinking about people who are considered undesirable by authorities or people in power; that if only they had fewer children they’d have fewer problems. In that sense it’s really like eugenics.”

Buzzfeed News, July 11, 2017: Donald Trump Blocked These People On Twitter. Now They’re Suing Him

Represented in the suit are seven individuals, all of whom were blocked after criticizing Trump. While a majority appear to be Trump critics, a few claim to be joining the suit for less partisan reasons. “I’m troubled that the president can create a space on Twitter — where there are millions of people — that he can manipulate to give the impression that more agree with him than actually do,” Philip Cohen, a university professor, said in a statement about the suit.

Live Science, June 16, 2017: The Science of Sexism: Why Workplaces Are So Hard to Change

Cohen stressed that it’s important that companies set clear goals to eliminate workplace inequality and communicate that those goals are important. “You can’t just react when something unpleasant happens and expect the climate to change,” he said.

Inside Higher Ed, April 25, 2017: Past as prologue

Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park who’s previously criticized aspects of On the Run, noted this week that he saw research value in the project, too. As to Pomona, Cohen said, “If I were evaluating [Alice Goffman] for a position, I would consider the whole story, as well as her current work, and make a judgment. I couldn’t say how that might turn out, but I don’t see the case for a lifetime ban from academia.”

New York Magazine, February 17, 2017: Let’s Stop Treating the Divorce Rate Like the Crime Rate

As Cohen tells Science of Us, one should not be so quick to make value judgments regarding whether a divorce number is optimistic or pessimistic.“You don’t want to look at the trend and say marriage is doing well or doing bad,” he says. “We don’t know … if we’re measuring a problem, or some kind of healthy churning.”

The Economist, February 4, 2017: New research suggests that effort at work is correlated with race

Worse treatment by managers of minority workers may itself encourage slacking, says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland.

Christian Science Monitor, December 22, 2016: Young Americans living at home hits 1940 levels. Why that may be a good thing

“Economic pressures are closely related to delayed household formation, but the trend toward later marriage and more education has been going on for decades, largely driven by the increased opportunities and independence for women,” says Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. “So what looks like prolonged adolescence and disengaged couch-surfing is also a story of increased opportunity and independence for some people in the long run.”

Washington Post, December 22, 2016: U.S. population growth is lower than at any time since the Great Depression

Outmigration from areas with declining economies can create a vicious cycle, said Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland. “When the good prospects are elsewhere, people with good prospects leave,” he said, adding, “The middle of the country is still hollowing out overall in the long-term.”

Washington Post, December 20, 2016: The staggering difference between rich Asian Americans and poor Asian Americans

“The problem is that ‘Asian American’ doesn’t hold together as a category,” said Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland. “The group is too diverse. It doesn’t really make sense to compare recent Chinese, Korean or Pakistani immigrants who are working in tech and engineering jobs to people who came as refugees in the 1980s and their working-class descendants.”

Vox, December 13, 2016: These maps show how Americans are dying younger. It’s not just the opioid epidemic

“It’s important to note that the population is falling in a lot of the places with rising mortality rates — people are leaving those places when they have the opportunity to,” said University of Maryland health inequality researcher Philip Cohen. “That partly means that the less healthy people are left behind, so you see higher mortality rates in those places. But in addition to declining economic fortunes from economic shifts, it’s also depressing and isolating to live in a place that people are trying to leave.”

New York Times, December 8, 2016: Dating with a disability

The overall first-marriage rate in the United States for people ages 18 to 49 is 48.9 per 1,000. For people with disabilities it’s just 24.4, according to Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland-College Park who studies family inequality issues.

Wired, November 30, 2016: Trump’s transition team is all tied up with anti-gay pseudoscience

“The FRC’s research is just a giant exercise in selection bias,” says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “If being rich makes you more likely to be married, a study that says being married makes you rich will always find that result.”

Inside Higher Ed, November 10, 2016: ‘This election is catastrophic’

Cohen said that as academics, teachers and researchers, he and his colleagues “have to be distressed at the anti-intellectual wave that Trump rode, the proud flaunting of facts and big-lie political tactics. These are threats not just to our intellectual climate, but to our political system, as well.” He tries to teach his students to gather data, think critically, evaluate evidence and use the result of studies to reflect on values and political views, and while the process is “messy and imperfect,” he said, it must be “anchored in a commitment to honest discourse and open-minded consideration of the facts.”

Business Insider, October 18, 2016: Here’s how bad government math spawned a racist lie about sexual assault

Now of course, it’s not worth responding to every idiotic meme that circulates in the backwater swamps of the racist internet. But, as Cohen notes, this one seems to have become unusually viral. David Duke, America’s most famous ex-KKK leader, recently repeated a version of the meme’s central lie in a video streamed live to 8,000 people on Facebook.

Inside Higher Ed, September 8, 2016: Tweeting your way to tenure

Cohen said, “We’d all love to be promoted for authoring a great tweet, but no one wants to be fired for a bad one.” So assessment of public engagement “needs to be holistic and qualitative, taking into account the quality, quantity and impact of the work.”

MSN Money, August 12, 2016: More adult Americans live with their parents and grandparents

Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, sees this trend as a sign that the definition of families is more fluid in America, and that they are more culturally diverse rather than a decline in the traditional family.

WYPR Midday, July 5, 2016: Marriage in America

Why are Americans delaying or even shunning the institution? What could this decline mean for their economic futures? Does marriage still matter? University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen explains what factors, from gender equality to educational attainment, have played a role in the decline of marriage rates.

Bloomberg, June 17, 2016: Boomers Are Making Sure the Divorces Keep Coming

The statistic that half of all marriages fail, long whispered by wedding guests and worried over by reluctant brides and grooms, has garnered some new support. If current behavior continues, 52.7 percent of marriages will end in tears, University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen concludes, based on recent survey data

Washington Post, May 24, 2016: Young people now more likely to live with parents than partners

Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, said the study signals an important demographic milestone. “Marriage has declined faster for people with low levels of education, and that has a lot to do with their ability to attain the kind of economic security to make them feel able to settle down and be excited to do so.”

Washington Post Wonkblog, May 11, 2016: What didn’t happen after Sanders slammed Clinton on helping poor people

Cohen said that focusing benefits on poor people who work is easier politically, since opponents can accuse those without a steady job of laziness. “If you say what you’re doing is for working families, nobody who votes objects to that,” he said. This focus “has shifted assistance to people who are just barely poor and not the seriously poor,” he added.

Wisconsin Public Radio, Joy Cardin show, March 9, 2016: Do men need to do more housework?

In the United States, women spend 40 more minutes per day on chores than men do on average. What will it take to close this gap? Joy Cardin talks to guest sociologist Philip Cohen about the housework divide and its fallout.

Inside Higher Ed, January 26, 2016: Are Academics Disproportionately Gay?

As a result of their status in a marginalized group, gays and lesbians “may also be more likely to value careers that involve critical examination of social life, including jobs as sociologists or college teachers,” Cohen said.

Slate, January 20, 2016: Black women don’t reap the same health benefits from delaying motherhood as Whites

“Using data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on all infant deaths in the U.S. in 2013, sociologist Philip N. Cohen recently found that the declining health part of Geronimus’s “weathering hypothesis” holds water.”

New York Times, January 15, 2016: How to Bridge That Stubborn Pay Gap

“If a cashier gets pregnant, has no parental leave, has to leave and reapply for her job, that’s not the same as making a career choice,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “One thing policy can do is make it easier for women to stick with their careers.”

Canvas8, December 11, 2015: 2016 Expert Outlook

Philip Cohen: “Changing family dynamics mean the rules are unclear in terms of the way people negotiate family boundaries and relationships.”

Washington Post, December 1, 2015: In single moms’ households, two heads are often better than one

“You wouldn’t want to change the arrangement more often than necessary,” Cohen said. “The concern would be that children don’t deal very well with relationship ambiguity. Children do need to know who they can count on and they need stability and security.”

Inside Higher Ed, November 24, 2015: Whose Bias?

Generally, Cohen added, “Social change on marriage equality and gay and lesbian rights has been incredibly rapid, but is far from settled, and the rapid change has left many raw wounds. We should all be mindful of the sharp culture clash that persists.”

Deseret News, November 1, 2015: Anti-porn advocates recast growing acceptance of pornography as public health problem

“What’s interesting about that, with porn becoming so ubiquitous, is you might think (that because) men and women are exposed to the same culture that they would be increasingly similar in the way they see things,” said study co-author Philip N. Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland. “That fact that the lines are spreading apart … is a clue that all is not well in acceptance-of-pornography land.”

Vox, October 29, 2015: China’s infamous one-child policy is finally over. Here’s why

University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen writes, “People have few children in China today because children have become too expensive—good schools especially cost too much, and the health care burdens of children outweigh the hoped-for future return of a child to care for parents when they’re retired.”

For Harriet, October 9, 2015: The Stats on Black Women and Marriage are Probably Not as Bad as You Think

Philip Cohen is a sociologist and demographer who teaches at the University of Maryland. For Harriet’s editor-in-chief, Kimberly Foster, spoke to him about his work on Black women and the marriage market. His work reveals how a closer look at the data complicates popular narratives about Black women and partnership.

Chronicle of Higher Education, September 14, 2015: Students’ Requests for Trigger Warnings Grow More Varied

Philip N. Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park, was in the middle of a lecture on abortion last year in his course on contemporary family issues when a student got up and left. She later told him she wouldn’t be able to participate in class discussions concerning abortion.

Yahoo! Health, August 17, 2015: The ‘Right’ Age to Get Married

There have been some naysayers of the findings, notably Phillip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. He found there’s, ultimately, no reason to worry if you get married later on.

The New York Times, June 5, 2015: Alice Goffman’s Heralded Book on Crime Is Disputed

Mr. Cohen said that Ms. Goffman’s book, whatever its faults, remained “timely and important.” He questioned what he called efforts to not just criticize her work but to “discredit her as a person and scholar. It should be possible to say,” he said, “ ‘Here’s a promising young scholar who did a really impressive project. Her book is flawed. Let’s learn from the mistakes and move on.’ ”

The Economist, May 23, 2015: Having it all, and then some

Older women who, in the past, wanted children but were unable to have them are now able to. But according to Philip Cohen, a demographer at the University of Maryland, this does not explain the entire leap. Rather, social changes in the nature of marriage seem to be driving the change. Getting an education and having a career are no longer always a barrier to having children; sometimes, they make it easier.

Washington Post Wonkblog, May 17, 2015: Why parents should stop hoping their kids will get married

University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen, who has tracked falling marriage rates around the world, has projected that, if the current pattern continues, the marriage rate will hit zero in 2042.

Kojo Nnamdi Show, May 14, 2015: Grandparent Deficit

We’re talking about aging grandparents and how having children later in life could mean fewer years together, with Philip Cohen, Ellen Weber Libby, and Susanna Schrobsdorff.

PunditFact (Tampa Bay Times), May 11, 2015: Maria Shriver: 2 in 3 U.S. families ‘rely on the mother’s income to stay above the poverty level’

We asked Philip Cohen, who researches inequality and families at the University of Maryland, to see if he could find the actual percentage of families who rely on a mother’s income to stay above the poverty level.

New York Times Upshot, May 8, 2015: Single Motherhood, in Decline Over All, Rises for Women 35 and Older

Women without college degrees are “women for whom the hardships of single motherhood are most acute,” Mr. Cohen said. “This could be deliberate planning, or it could reflect relationship problems or economic stress undermining their family plans.”

Washington Post Wonkblog, May 8, 2015: Why educated women are having more babies:

Sociologist Philip Cohen puts it this way: “Women with more education have more opportunities for productive lives doing work other than childbearing.”

Boston Globe, April 26, 2015: They do: The scholarly about-face on marriage:

“The idea that the culture is going downhill, and we need a cultural revival happens to be very closely related to the idea that we should not address poor peoples’ problems by raising taxes and giving poor people money,” Cohen said. “So there’s a political element to this.”

Vox.com, March 26, 2015: The real reason research blaming black poverty on black culture has fallen out of favor:

I spoke to University of Maryland Sociologist Philip N. Cohen about why he says the narrative about liberals stifling studies like Moynihan’s doesn’t make sense, and how it connects to modern-day complaints about “political correctness.”

Georgia Public Radio, “On Second Thought,” March 18, 2015:  Are women naturally superior to men? (audio file):

Host Celeste Headlee sits down with Melvin Konner and a panel of guests to discuss the biological, intellectual and social differences between women and men and suss out whether or not there is a dominant sex after all.

Deseret News, March 9, 2015: A report on the instability and economic challenges of black families is still debated 50 years later:

“Historic changes in family structure do pose many challenges for families, but the economic trends over the half century since Moynihan wrote largely reflect other forces — forces that are more amenable to policy intervention than family structure,” wrote Philip Cohen and his colleagues.

Washington Post, March 3, 2015: The zombie statistic about women’s share of income and property:

Amazingly enough, most of this factoid — the 66 percent of work, 10 percent of income and 1 percent of property — dates back to some very fuzzy research from the late 1970s. Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociology professor, in 2011 traced it to a journal published by the International Labor Organization in 1978.

Deseret News, February 20, 2015: New study says children with same-sex parents are worse off

“The basic problem here is obvious, and was apparent in the infamous Regnerus paper as well: same-sex couples, regardless of their history — married, divorced, never-married, just-married, married before the kid was born, just got together yesterday when the kid was 15, and so on — are all combined in one undifferentiated category,” Cohen wrote.

NewstalkFM (Ireland) The Green Room, January 24, 2015: Sex Dimorphism and Disney Cartoons:

Frozen, How To Train Your Dragon, Gnomeo and Juliet are all guilty of sex dimorphism, says Sociology Professor Philip N Cohen. So what is it? [podcast]

Marketwatch, December 24, 2014: Less than half of kids now live in a ‘traditional’ family:

“You could look at this as a decline of traditional marriage, but I think it’s better described as an increase in family diversity,” says Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and author of The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change. He says people are marrying later, cohabiting instead of marrying, becoming single parents or forming blended families. “There’s been an explosion of family diversity in the last half century.”

Wisconsin Pubic Radio, Kathleen Dunn Show, December 16, 2014: The Effect Of The Great Recession On Families

The effects of the Great Recession on families in the United States has been dramatic in regard to birth rates and divorce. It has also been strongly suggestive of domestic violence. Philip Cohen joins Kathleen to discuss the results of a recent study on the issue and what it means.

Voice of America, December 10, 2014: Is the ‘Average’ American Family Vanishing?

“It’s become more possible for people to divorce out of an unhappy marriage or an abusive marriage,” said Cohen, “and more possible to raise children as a single parent, rather than have a shotgun wedding or marriage with a partner that’s not someone’s desired marriage partner.”

NPR Morning Edition, November 28, 2014: Census Bureau May Stop Asking Marital History Questions

Philip Cohen is a sociologist at the University of Maryland. He points out marriage is in dramatic decline. Families are growing more complex — having people’s marital histories helps researchers understand such shifts and who’s affected. “Such as, what are the ages? What are the education levels and race or ethnic groups? What’s happening with same-sex couples?”

Mic.com, November 7, 2014: Is Portland the Worst City for Young Married People?

“It looks to me like people move to places like Portland after their marriages break up,” Cohen told Mic. “Maybe [states like Portland, Wyoming and New Mexico] are seen as desirable remarriage markets, or good job markets, or interesting places to move to start over.”

Washington Post, Time, Deseret News, US News, and others reported: Diversity is the new normal for America’s children.

See the list of reports, with links, here. I also appeared on Fox News to discuss the report, and on WBUR’s Here and Now, which plays on many NPR stations (mp3 audio file).

Washington Post, September 4, 2014: Unlike in the 1950s, there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family today

“There hasn’t been the collapse of one dominant family structure and the rise of another. It’s really a fanning out into all kinds of family structures,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “Different is the new normal.”

New York Times, September 6, 2014: Why Don’t More Men Go Into Teaching?

“We’re not beyond having a cultural devaluation of women’s work,” said Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “So that if a job is done primarily by women, people tend to believe it has less value.”

Science Magazine, September 3, 2014: Bad Economy Good for Marriages?

There were probably about 150,000 fewer breakups during the Great Recession than would have been expected—a 4% drop—finds University of Maryland, College Park, sociologist Philip Cohen.

New York Times, August 22, 2014: Time Marches On, Even at Fortress Astoria

According to Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland and the author of “The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change,” his time at the Fortress might be excellent preparation. “Living as a committed roommate is in some ways similar to marriage — chores, schedules, sharing secure physical space with people one is close to,” Mr. Cohen said. “So if that’s something people learn as adults, that might help with a marriage, more than, say, living as a single bachelor.”

USA Today, August 19, 2014: Elderly caregiving: Daughters, not sons, step up

“This means that gender probably is having a big impact throughout (women’s) whole lives,” said Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. “We see part of the reason for the gender gap in pay is because women spend more time out of the workforce, taking care of children, making career sacrifices for family. This suggests that parent care is also a big factor in the gender gap.”

Los Angeles Times, August 12, 2014: Racism, the misuse of genetics and a huge scientific protest

Commenters have argued that Wade’s approach is fundamentally racist, in that he purports to identify characteristics that ostensibly account for the success of certain races or ethnic groups, and finds their source in those groups’ genes. In an exhaustive piece in the Boston Review, sociologist Philip Cohen places this “in the grand tradition of scientific racism.”

The Atlantic, August 8, 2014: Why Are There So Many Women in Public Relations?

“It looks like women are more likely than men to prepare for [a PR] career in college,” Cohen said. Meanwhile, women decidedly do not major in fields that could lead to other types of high-paying jobs, like in engineering or computer science.

New York Times Op Talk, June 11, 2014: Does Marriage Protect Women Against Violence?

“[Cohen] also worried about the larger message some would take from the op-ed: ‘The impression created is that if you are not married and you have experienced sexual violence or intimate-partner violence, then shame on you.'”

Time, May 27, 2014: The Shame of the Male Virgin

“This is one place where women have more flexibility than men,” says Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist who studies family and gender dynamics. “Especially in adolescence, the question is: If you can’t be good at sports or have sex, what makes you a man? Maybe it’s violence.”

Deseret News, May 23, 2014: The potential impact of falling fertility rates on the economy and culture

I said: “The price of raising a child goes up, but the benefits also go up. The hope is the increase in children’s fortunes makes up for the greater expense and they do better in school, in college, are more productive economically.”

Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2014: For More American Moms, Kids Are a Late-30s Thing

Delayed childbearing has allowed more women to pursue educations and careers, and achieve some measure of financial independence… “This is good news,” says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “They are more protected against the shock of earnings loss, and they’re probably more independent and better-established in their relationships.”

National Post, March 28, 2014: Canadian economist never knew he would become centre of a U.S. firestorm over his research on same-sex parenting

Ever since U.S. judges began overturning interracial marriage ban in the 1960s, the United States has not decided civil rights “based on grade-point averages of the children,” Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, and a critic of Mr. Allen, wrote to the National Post.

Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2014: How We Meet Our Spouses

Though the leads of “How I Met Your Mother” are likely to end the series coupled off, many Americans aren’t so lucky. “Most demographers believe that about 15% of Americans will never marry, up from only 5% in the 1950s and early 1960s,” says Stephanie Coontz… And about half of those who married in 2012 will eventually divorce, according to sociologist Philip Cohen of the University of Maryland.

Cosmopolitan, March 7, 2014: Are Women Hiding Their Career Achievements From Potential Partners?

“It’s great to see men openly saying they want women who have ambitious career trajectories,” says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland at College Park, who studies changing gender and family dynamics. “If they follow through on those statements — relocating for her job or taking the day off when the kids are sick, even half the time — that’s even better. The more people successfully model such relationships, the more men might turn these statements into real-life changes.”

Live Science, February 24, 2014: The truth about how mom’s stress affects baby’s brain

“Controlling for mother’s age and father’s age, I find that the more education you have, the less likely your child is to have a disability,” [Cohen] told Live Science. Additionally, “the more income your family has, the less likely your child is to have a disability.”

Albany Business Review, February 13, 2014: Divorces up 17 percent in New York since recession ended

“In this recession, it appears that the increased costs were a bigger factor than the increased strains, so the divorce rate fell temporarily before rebounding when people were able to manage the expense and related difficulties of the divorce itself,” Cohen said.

Gawker, January 28, 2014: Now That The Economy Is Back, Time to Get Divorced

We’ve had some hard times in the past five years. But thanks to The Fed and Almighty God, the economy is booming again. Now you can finally get divorced. … Congratulations on your new job and Match.com profile.

Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2014: Divorces rise as economy recovers, study finds

Divorces plunged when the recession struck and slowly started to rise as the recovery began, according to a study to be published in Population Research and Policy Review. From 2009 to 2011, about 150,000 fewer divorces occurred than would otherwise have been expected, University of Maryland sociologist Philip N. Cohen estimated.

Cleveland Public Radio’s The Sound of Ideas, January 13, 2014: War on Poverty: Who’s Winning?

I said: “You can think about ways that we can provide the sustenance needed [for single parents] so that people can live happy and successful lives and children can grow up and thrive. We do that a little bit with our patchwork of poverty support programs. But we don’t have a very comprehensive effort at taking care of the people who do that valuable work that we all benefit from.”

Wisconsin Public Radio, January 6, 2014: The War on Poverty’s Effect on Families

I said: “People who have children and can’t get a job, or can’t manage to hold a job while they are taking care of their family responsibilities, that’s work. It’s effort, it’s productive, it takes creativity. It produces something of value that other people benefit from. And the idea of spreading resources around to make sure that people who do that kind of work are also cared for — I guess justice’ is a good word for it. It also seems like common sense.”

Los Angeles Times, December 26, 2013: ‘Men are stuck’ in gender roles, data suggest

Familiar measures of progress toward gender equality, such as women working in management or men picking up housework, began to plateau in the 1990s. Cohen found that in the first decade of the millennium jobs stayed similarly segregated by gender — the first time since 1960 that gender integration in the workplace had slowed to a virtual halt.

MSNBC The Cycle, December 2, 2013: Continuing the fight against ‘the pay gap’

I said: “We really saw a strong pattern of women entering men’s occupations, especially in middle class jobs. But not so much movement the other way. … There’s a lot more we can do support the work-family integration that I think is going to help break down these gender barriers.”

Gender News, September 26, 2013: Gay marriage, politics, and the ivory tower

I said: “The general direction of social change is toward increasing diversity in family form and structure. The law and other institutions are catching up to this…but also will inevitably have to come to grips with the fact that we cannot legislate for every situation in advance. We need universal principles of protection and equality.”

Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2013: US poverty rate steady at 15 percent, but ‘lower class’ is booming

I said: “The overall economic uncertainty exacerbates some of the problems we’re having. Look at this intensive parenting mania … that’s partly because we see inequality widening and we don’t want our kids to end up on the wrong side of that line.”

Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2013: Amid slow economic recovery, more Americans identify as ‘lower class’

University of Maryland sociologist Philip N. Cohen, who pointed out on his blog the rising numbers of people identifying as lower class, hypothesized that more struggling twentysomethings were doing so because fewer have been raised in union households.

Washington Post, September 11, 2013: Children suffer from growing economic inequality among families since recession

“The vast majority of people want to have long-term, stable relationships,” said Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist who studies family inequality. “The fact that rich people are becoming more able to do that than poor people is just another indicator of the unequal society we live in.”

CSPAN Washington Journal, September 6, 2013: The Changing American Household

“Welfare reform was supposed to crack down and make people get married before they had children, and it really didn’t. What it did do was make it harder for them to get by with their children.”

MSN News, August 8, 2013: Rumor, Smarter Women Have Fewer or No Children

Cohen continued: “…this claim is socially corrosive, because it distracts us from the reality that low fertility levels are essential for women’s equality and well-being, and have in fact contributed to the historical rise in education levels — and independence — for women.”

Huffpo Live, August 5, 2013: Legally Defining a Family

I said: “I don’t think specifying the nature of the relationships the law is going to recognize in advance is going to help us. We need to try to specify the concrete relationships in individual cases and protect those.”

Inside Higher Ed, August 2, 2013: Controversy Continues Over Gay Parenting Study

In a post to his blog, Family Inequality, Philip N. Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, calls for editor James Wright, professor of sociology at the University of Central Florida, to step down. Cohen says he’ll boycott the journal as a contributor and reviewer until Wright leaves the Elsevier publication and urges others to do so.

Huffpo Live, June 28, 2013: The Disestablishment of Marriage.

“We really have never tried a society in which marriage was truly free and voluntary. It’s always been that one or the other spouse has been forced, coerced, or needed marriage for their survival or well-being. So we don’t know what it would look like to have a society in which marriage was really freely chosen.”

International Herald Tribune, June 28, 2013: Redrawing the Family Debate.

“Is ‘the family’ a barbaric, premodern holdover institution, perpetuating irrational relations and inherited forms of inequality?” Philip N. Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist who studies the institution, writes on his blog. “Or is it a ‘haven in a heartless world,”’ he asks, “one of the few places where people still have any loyalty to anyone but themselves? I think it’s both.”

Time Healthland, June 13, 2013: What part family plays in poverty.

“Black child poverty fell drastically during the 1990s and then rose again during the 2000s,” notes Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “Why? It wasn’t family structure that did it, it was the economy principally—and, economists would say, the Earned Income Tax Credit.”

Washington Post, May 29, 2013: Nearly 40 percent of mothers are now the family breadwinners, report says.

“The decade of the 2000s witnessed the most rapid change in the percentage of married mothers earning more than their husbands of any decade since 1960,” said Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist who studies gender and family trends. “This reflects the larger job losses experienced by men at the beginning of the Great Recession. Also, some women decided to work more hours or seek better jobs in response to their husbands’ job loss, potential loss or declining wages.”

Inside Story Americas on Al Jazeera English, May 10, 2013: The American single mother’s burden.

I said: “The deficits that single mothers have are money and time. And if you can’t afford high quality child care – and very few people can – and you don’t have time because you are working at a low wage job that isn’t flexible, doesn’t permit time off and can fire you for missing a day of work, then the complications add up.”

The Joy Cardin Show on Wisconsin Public Radio, March 26, 2013: Converging Gender Roles.

A Pew Research Center poll on time use shows fathers have more than doubled the amount of time they spend on housework, and almost a quarter of single-earner families have women as the sole breadwinner. Joy Cardin speaks to sociologist Philip Cohen about how family gender roles are converging and what this means. (MP3 Audio file here)

The Daily Circuit on Minnesota Public Radio, March 5, 2013: The Women’s Movement 50 Years After The Feminine Mystique

In which Philip Cohen says, “The concept of stall has been growing on us in the last 10 years, and as you look across the indicators the evidence is now very strong.”

Inside Higher Ed, February 21, 2013: The Rise of Women

For those who do make it to college, “The biggest problem for gender inequality among the college-educated remains the lack of gender integration across fields of study,” said Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Midday with Dan Rodricks, January 30, 2013: The Pay Gap

In his inauguration speech, President Obama highlighted equal pay for women as a priority for his second term. It has been 50 years since another Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, signed the Equal Pay Act, which mandated compensation equality between the sexes. While women have made gains in pay, they still lag 18 to 20 percent behind their male peers. Our guests: Linda Barrington, managing director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell;  Philip Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and author of the Family Inequality blog; and Kate C. Farrar director of the American Association of University Women Campus Leadership Programs.

Wall Street Journal‘s The Numbers Guy, December 7, 2012: Fertility Figures

“The birth rate and general fertility rate are much easier to measure because you don’t need to know the ages of the women having children, just how many babies and how many total people or women,” said Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, College Park. “So sometimes we use them for historical trends and comparisons.”

Marketplace, November 29, 2012: Census breaks down occupations by gender, ethnicity

Philip Cohen is a sociologist at the University of Maryland. He says women did make great strides in the ’70s and ’80s, but things have stagnated since. “And I think one of the reasons why we haven’t seen more progress is women have sort of hit a wall where there’s not enough flexibility at home and work,” he says. Cohen says employers could help by being more open to flextime. And the government could step in with more public preschool programs.

Time Healthland, October 19, 2012: Tracing the Link Between Single Moms and Gun Violence

“I think the research shows that the biggest negative effect of single parenthood results from lack of resources,” says Cohen. “Getting people married is not the answer, getting families the support they need is.”

New York Times, October 12, 2012: Want Your Union to Last? Marry in New Jersey

A study of other data by Philip N. Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, found that Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and North Dakota had the lowest rate of divorces the previous year compared with their populations — only 6 or 7 per 1,000, compared with 31 states that recorded more than 10 divorces per 1,000 residents, and Oklahoma, where nearly 14 per 1,000 said they were divorced.

Bloomberg, September 20, 2016: What we know about why couples get divorced

Assuming Millennials follow more or less the same pattern as their Boomer parents, about half of American marriages will continue to end in divorce, according to a recent estimate by University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen.

To The Point on KCRW, September 14, 2012: Is This the End of Men?

Philip Cohen: “The idea that women are rising to an actual position of dominance is completely invented and there really is no evidence for this. It’s a projection into the future, which you can do, but there’s just no evidence for it. … At all ages, at all education levels, men earn more than women. … So we have change in the direction that Hanna Rosin is talking about, but there’s … no historical basis for projecting into the future and saying we’re actually toward female dominance. I think we need to see if we can find a place for equality in our imaginations.”

Zocalo Public Square, September 9, 2012: In Praise of the Male Biological Clock

“The age difference between a husband and wife is a big predictor of gender inequality,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, explaining that even a small difference in earnings affects how a family makes decisions like who should stay home with the children or dial back a career.

New York Magazine, August 16, 2012: Do the Rich Get More Recession Divorces?

It is possible, says Cohen, that the small uptick in divorces among educated people in fragile housing markets represents the tip of an iceberg — that if the economy continues to sputter along, more people will contemplate breaking up but delay it until they can get disentangled, causing a pent-up demand and, eventually, a boom. He calls this the divorce/recession lull-rebound hypothesis.

Life’s Little Mysteries, August 1, 2012: Why Is Pink for Girls and Blue for Boys?

“This happened during a time when mass marketing was appearing,” Cohen told Life’s Little Mysteries. “Being ‘gender normal’ is very important to us, and as a marketing technique, if retailers can convince you that being gender normal means you need to buy a certain product — cosmetics, plastic surgery, blue or pink clothing, etc. — it just makes sense from a production or mass marketing perspective.”

NPR’s Talk of the Nation, June 12, 2012: Improving the lives of single moms and their kids

COHEN: I think it’s important to realize that there are different ways of investing in children’s future. It can be direct through their own education and care, and it can also be through investment in the skills and opportunities of the parents. And if we can cross that hurdle of public recognition that we have a collective interest in that kind of investment, I think we’ll be much better off and find that, like with good-quality childcare, making education available to single parents may translate into not only economic benefits for them but future benefits for the children.

Time Healthland, June 11, 2012: Do Children of Same-Sex Parents Really Fare Worse?

Another damning critique: the NFSS compares kids of “any parent who ever ‘had a relationship’ with someone of the same sex to those who lived with both married biological parents from birth to age 18,” says Philip N. Cohen, professor of sociology at University of Maryland, College Park. “It is not about people who were ‘raised by’ lesbians or gay men.”

Time Magazine, March 26, 2012: The Richer Sex

The glass ceiling remain solid; according to Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, the percentage of managers who are women has risen from 35% to only 38% in the past 20 years.

ABC2-TV, May 14, 2012: “Is it cheating if you have permission?”

Cohen says people are creating their own definitions of what makes a successful union. They marry later, have kids without ever marrying at all and even marry several times, looking for the perfect partner. Cohen says, “Traditional marriage is really still an ideal that many people, I would say, most people still hold. What they find is it’s often not practical or doesn’t work.”

NPR, Jan, 2, 2012: Google Searches Are A Window Into Our Culture

Philip Cohen: “On the liberal list are arugula pasta, beets nutrition, beets urine, fake meat, fennel salad, firm tofu, a variety of vegetarian cooking, vegetarian recipes. Something like a Republican stereotype of what a liberal food diet might be.”

NPR, Dec. 20, 2011: Marriage Economy: ‘I Couldn’t Afford To Get Divorced’

Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says that multiple studies have found that the marital distress that comes from money problems and feeling trapped is strongly associated with an increased risk of domestic violence. “I’m quite confident from the research on couples — and what drives violence within couples — that among the people who are experiencing economic shock or dislocation or unemployment, there is an increased risk of violence. And I would not expect that to be any different during this recession.”

Time Healthland, Dec. 12, 2011: The Five Secrets of Happily Married Parents,

“Marriage can be beneficial, but that does not necessarily mean that taking unmarried people and persuading them to get married will bring them all those benefits,” says Cohen, who thinks getting people educated and employed would do more to create happy families.

Marketplace, Aug. 30, 2011: Multigenerational home numbers on the rise

Philip Cohen: “Well, the first thing that happens is that people turn to those they expect to care for them, or people that have some moral obligation. And whether its young people looking up a generation or old people looking down a generation, the family is the first place that people have to turn.”

Raleigh News Observer, July 25, 2011: What’s happening to all of North Carolina’s men?

Women giving birth to more boys than girls is “apparently evolution’s answer to the fact that, as the weaker sex, males die more often at all ages,” said Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill.

WUNC The State of Things, Feb. 8, 2011: Happily Ever After

Host Frank Stasio considers the changing state of our personal unions with guests Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of the blog “Family Inequality”; Leah Stewart, author of the novel “Husband and Wife”; Kristin Celello, author of the book “Making Marriage Work”; and Lisa Levenstein,  associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

WUNC The State of Things, Aug. 11, 2010: The Aging of the Baby Boom Generation

Philip Cohen: So if you were born in 1960, graduated college in 1982, and entered the labor force in the middle of an awful recession, then managed to pull some kind of career together, got married and divorced, by the 90s it was time to be downsized already for the first time, you’re 40 in 2000, and it’s time for the dot-com bubble, you’re out of your job again, and here you are ready for your retirement, finally, you’ve been left in your own 401(k), having to put together your own pension, and of course now that’s in the tank and your house isn’t worth anything. So that insecurity and instability is really imprinted this group. We talk about the 60s, and civil rights and antiwar, and great music and everything, but that’s seeming like a long time ago now for people who are looking at retirement.

Newsweek, June 11, 2010: “I Don’t” — The Case Against Marriage

“The bottom line is that men, not women, are much happier when they’re married,” says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina who studies marriage and family.

WRAL-TV, Nov. 4, 2009: Mothers struggle with work-home balance

Philip Cohen: “The pressure falls on [women], and all the progress we’ve made has so far not alleviated that pressure.”

Washington Post, August 13, 2006: Women in the Top Ranks Pull Up the Pay of Others

“The glass ceiling is about all women, not just women who become managers," said Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who announced the study here Friday at the 101st meeting of the American Sociological Association. "If women break through the glass ceiling, it helps other women.”