Writing

Most of my research is about families and inequality. I write from a demographic perspective about marriage, divorce, births and deaths, and various kinds of inequality, such as housework, occupational segregation, job segregation, and racism. I also do methodological work on demographic topics, and write about open science.

Books

Citizen Scholar

My new book is, Citizen Scholar: Public Engagement for Social Scientists, coming out at the end of 2024 from Columbia University Press. I posted essays and excerpts as I wrote, here. I welcome your critiques, suggestions, and ideas — if you’re interested in reading a preprint version, drop me an email.

The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change

The fourth edition of my book, The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change, has hundreds of new references, all the data updated, lots of new content. Details about the book — contents, features, and supporting materials — including how to order exam copies, and how to contact a Norton representative, are available here. If you are an instructor who is using or considering the book I invite you to join this Facebook group for a teaching discussion.

Now the #1 book for the course, Philip Cohen’s The Family is an accessible, data-driven introduction to contemporary sociological thinking on families. Drawing on his expertise as a sociologist, demographer, and teacher, Cohen uses data to elucidate key trends in family life and to show how the story of today’s families is a story of diversity, inequality, and social change. A new Norton Illumine Ebook for the Fourth Edition brings this story to life through embedded Check Your Understanding questions with rich answer-specific feedback, Story Behind the Numbers animations, and new Dynamic Data Figures that help students develop their data literacy skills while learning about the biggest trends in family life.

From the review of the first edition, by Shannon Davis in Teaching Sociology:

Well organized, The Family builds on theories of modernity to address the three core concepts that Cohen argues underlie understanding contemporary families: diversity, inequality, and social change. The scholarship upon which the text is built is robust, but the text itself is clearly written and should be accessible for the target audience of undergraduates. The conversational nature of the text makes it feel like you are sitting next to Cohen and he is talking you through the major issues around the intersection of paid work and family life, for example, drawing upon his deep knowledge of the topic and engaging the most recent research available to help make sense of complicated issues.

enduringbonds-cover.jpg

Enduring Bonds: Inequality, Marriage, Parenting, and Everything Else That Makes Families Great and Terrible

Published by the University of California Press (order from UCPress or Amazon), it’s a collection of data-driven essays on topics from parenting and inequality to marriage promotion and sexual dimorphism, intersectionality, children’s names, and the Regnerus Affair.

The title comes from Anthony Kennedy’s Obergefell decision (at the suggestion of Judy Ruttenberg, my wife and the one with two history degrees, who knows about pulling titles out of primary sources). It’s about the good and the bad of bonds. From the introduction:

Kennedy wrote, “The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.” It took the late justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative Catholic, to point out that marriage isn’t really about freedom. In his furious dissent, Scalia mocked the idea that people find “freedoms” in the “enduring bond” of marriage. “One would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage,” he scoffed. “Ask the nearest hippie.” Scalia had a point.

From the review by Kristin Turney and Rebecca Goodsell in Contemporary Sociology:

He demonstrates great breadth and depth of knowledge throughout the book, providing the reader with a wealth of details within easily digestible chapters.… Enduring Bonds addresses some of the most pressing social issues related to families and encourages readers to engage their sociological imagination to use sound data and methods to parse out the key factors contributing to inequalities within and between families.

I hope you like it, for you or your students.

contexts-cover.jpg

The Contexts Reader (3e)

The editorial team of Syed Ali, Letta Page, and me produced an edition of the Contexts Reader, with W. W. Norton. It’s more than 60 of our favorite pieces from the magazine we edited for 2015-2017, most of them new for this edition (and with a beautiful cover photo from Scott Matthews, who provided most of our cover images). Undergraduates are a huge part of the Contexts readership, and we’re super proud that this book has been a big part of thousands of students’ introductions to sociology. (Also, the royalties from this one go to the American Sociological Association, not us!)

Research

Academic journal articles

I've left off the titles of the journals here, to prevent biasing your evaluation of the work before you read it.

  • Ansgar Hudde and Philip N. Cohen. 2024. “Completed US Fertility by Sex, Cohort, and Education Level.” DOI:10.1177/23780231241261610 [article]

  • Cheng, Hao-Chun, and Philip N. Cohen. 2024. “The Variability of Age at First Marriage across Birth Cohort and Education Level: The Case of Taiwan.” DOI:10.1080/17441730.2024.2352672. [article | preprint]

  • Pepin, Joanna R., and Philip N. Cohen. 2024. “Growing Uncertainty in Marriage Expectations among U.S. Youth.” DOI:10.1177/23780231241241035. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2023. “Rethinking marriage metabolism: The declining frequency of marital events in the United States.” DOI:10.1007/s11113-023-09827-6. [article | preprint]

  • Altman, Micah, Philip N. Cohen, & Jessica Polka. 2023. “Interventions in Scholarly Communication: Design Lessons from Public Health.” DOI:10.5210/fm.v28i8.12941. [article]

  • Caudillo, Mónica L., Andrés Villarreal, & Philip N. Cohen. 2022. “The Opioid Epidemic and Children's Living Arrangements in the United States, 2000-2018.” DOI:10.1177/00027162221142648. [article | preprint]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2022. “Pandemic-related decline in injuries related to women wearing high-heeled shoes: Analysis of U.S. data for 2016-2020.” DOI:10.22037/sdh.v8i1.37227. [article | PDF]

  • Altman, Micah, and Philip N. Cohen. 2022. “The Scholarly Knowledge Ecosystem: Challenges and Opportunities for the Field of Information.” DOI:10.3389/frma.2021.751553. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2021. “The rise of one-person households.” DOI:10.1177/23780231211062315. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2021. “Disrupted Family Plans and Exacerbated Inequalities Associated with COVID-19 Pandemic.” DOI:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.24399. [commentary]

  • Wagner, Brandon G., Kate H. Choi, and Philip N. Cohen. 2020. "Decline in Marriage Associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States." DOI:10.1177/2378023120980328. [article]

  • Pepin, Joanna R. and Philip N. Cohen. 2020. “Nation-level Gender Inequality and Couples' Income Arrangements.” DOI:10.1007/s10834-020-09717-5. [article]

  • Sobieraj, Sarah, Gina M. Masullo, Philip N. Cohen, Tarleton Gillespie, and Sarah J. Jackson. 2020. “Politicians, Social Media, and Digital Publics: Old Rights, New Terrain.” DOI:10.1177/0002764220945357. [article | preprint]

  • Kang, Jeehye, Philip N. Cohen, and Feinian Chen. 2020. "Latinx Families’ Extended Household Structures and Child Behavioral Problems across Mother’s Immigrant Status in Los Angeles." DOI: 10.1007/s12187-020-09749-1. [preprint]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2020. "The COVID-19 Epidemic in Rural US Counties." DOI:10.29333/ejeph/8331. [article | materials]

  • Philip N. Cohen. 2019. "The Coming Divorce Decline." DOI:10.1177/2378023119873497 [article | materials]

  • Cohen, Philip N. and Joanna R. Pepin. 2018. "Unequal Marriage Markets: Sex Ratios and First Marriage Among Black and White Women." DOI:10.1177/237802311879108 [article | materials]

  • Kang, Jeehye and Philip N. Cohen. 2017. "Extended Kin and Children's Behavioral Functioning: Family Structure and Parental Immigrant Status." DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.033 [article | preprint]

  • Yavorsky, Jill E., Philip N. Cohen, and Yue Qian. 2016. "Man Up, Man Down: Race-ethnicity and the Gendered Hierarchy of Men in Female-dominated Work." DOI:10.1111/tsq.12152. [preprint]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2016. "Maternal Age and Infant Mortality for White, Black, and Mexican Mothers in the United States." DOI:10.15195/v3.a2. [article | Stata code]

  • Kang, Jeehye and Philip N. Cohen. 2015. "Household extension and employment among Asian immigrant women in the United States." DOI:10.1177/0192513X15606489 [article | preprint]

  • Lykke, Lucia C. and P. N. Cohen. 2015. "The Widening Gender Gap in Opposition to Pornography, 1975-2012." DOI:10.1177/2329496515604170. [article | preprint]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2015. "How troubling is our inheritance? A review of genetics and race in the social sciences." DOI:10.1177/0002716215587673. [article | preprint]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2014. "Recession and Divorce in the United States, 2008-2011." DOI:10.1007/s11113-014-9323-z. [article | postprint]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2014. "Parental Age and Cognitive Disability among Children in the United States." DOI:10.15195/v1.a8 [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2013. "The Persistence of Workplace Gender Segregation in the US." DOI:10.1111/soc4.12083. [preprint]

  • Perrin, Andrew J., Philip N. Cohen, and Neal Caren. 2013. "Are Children of Parents Who Had Same-Sex Relationships Disadvantaged? A Scientific Evaluation of the No-Differences Hypothesis." DOI:10.1080/19359705.2013.772553. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2013. "The End of Men is Not True: What Is Not and What Might Be on the Road Toward Gender Equality." [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2013. "Children's Gender and Parents' Color Preferences." DOI:10.1007/s10508-012-9951-5. [article]

  • Ribas, Vanesa, Janette S. Dill, and Philip N. Cohen. 2012. "Mobility for Care Workers: Job Changes and Wages for Nurse Aides." DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.08.015 [article]

  • Geist, Claudia and Philip N. Cohen. 2011. "Headed Toward Equality? Housework Change in Comparative Perspective." DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2011.00850.x [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2011. "Homogamy Unmodified." DOI:10.1111/j.1756-2589.2010.00080.x. [article | preprint]

  • Huffman, Matt L., Philip N. Cohen and Jessica Pearlman. 2010. "Engendering Change: Organizational Dynamics and Workplace Gender Segregation, 1975-2005." DOI:10.2189/asqu.2010.55.2.255. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N., Matt L. Huffman and Stefanie Knauer. 2009. "Stalled Progress? Gender Segregation and Wage Inequality Among Managers, 1980-2000." DOI:10.1177/0730888409347582 [article]

  • Kreider, Rose and Philip N. Cohen. 2009. "Disability Among Internationally Adopted Children in the United States." DOI:10.1542/peds.2008-3206. [article]

  • Gupta, Sanjiv, Liana Sayer and Philip N. Cohen. 2009. "Earnings and the Stratification of Time among U.S. Women." DOI:10.1007/s11205-008-9385-6. [article]

  • Marsh, Kris, Willima Darity Jr., Philip N. Cohen, Lynne M. Casper and Danielle Salters. 2007. "The Emerging Black Middle Class: Single and Living Alone." DOI:10.1093/sf/86.2.735. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. and Matt L. Huffman. 2007. "Working for the Woman? Female Managers and the Gender Wage Gap." DOI:10.1177/000312240707200502. [article]

  • Read, Jen'nan Ghazal and Philip N. Cohen. 2007. "One Size Fits All? Explaining U.S.-born and Immigrant Women’s Employment across Twelve Ethnic Groups." DOI:10.1353/sof.2007.0077. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2007. "Confronting Economic Gender Inequality" (review essay). DOI:10.1177/0486613406296940. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. and Matt L. Huffman. 2007. "Black Underrepresentation in Management across U.S. Labor Markets." DOI:10.1177/0002716206296734. [article]

  • Fuwa, Makiko and Philip N. Cohen. 2007. "Housework and Social Policy." DOI:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2006.04.005. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. and Miruna Petrescu-Prahova. 2006. "Gendered Living Arrangements Among Children with Disabilities." 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00279.x. [article]

  • de Ruijter, Esther, Judith Treas and Philip N. Cohen. 2005. "Outsourcing the Gender Factory: Living Arrangements and Service Expenditures on Female and Male Tasks." [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2004. "The Gender Division of Labor: 'Keeping House' and Occupational Segregation in the United States." DOI:10.1177/0891243203262037. [article]

  • Huffman, Matt L. and Philip N. Cohen. 2004. "Occupational Segregation and the Gender Gap in Workplace Authority: National Versus Local Labor Markets" DOI:10.1023/B:SOFO.0000019650.97510.de. [article]

  • Huffman, Matt L. and Philip N. Cohen. 2004. "Racial Wage Inequality: Job Segregation and Devaluation Across U.S. Labor Markets." DOI:10.1086/378928. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. and Matt L. Huffman. 2003. "Individuals, Jobs, and Labor Markets: The Devaluation of Women's Work." DOI:10.1177/000312240707200502. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. and Matt L. Huffman. 2003. "Occupational Segregation and the Devaluation of Women's Work Across U.S. Labor Markets." DOI:10.1353/sof.2003.0027. [article]

  • Jeanne A. Batalova and P. N. Cohen. 2002. "Premarital Cohabitation and Housework: Couples in Cross-National Perspective." DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00743.x. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2002. "Extended Households at Work: Living Arrangements and Inequality in Single Mothers' Employment." DOI:10.1023/A:1019631107686. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2002. "Cohabitation and the Declining Marriage Premium for Men." DOI:10.1177/0730888402029003004. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. and Lynne M. Casper. 2002. "In Whose Home? Multigenerational Families in the United States, 1998-2000." DOI:10.1525/sop.2002.45.1.1. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2001. "Race, Class, and Labor Markets: The White Working Class and Racial Composition of U.S. Metropolitan Areas." DOI:10.1006/ssre.2000.0693. [article]

  • Casper, Lynne M., and Philip N. Cohen. 2000. "How Does POSSLQ Measure Up? Historical Estimates of Cohabitation." DOI:10.2307/2648125. [article]. (An earlier version was a U.S. Bureau of the Census Population Division working paper.)

  • Cohen, Philip N. and Suzanne M. Bianchi. 1999. "Marriage, Children, and Women's Employment: What Do We Know?" [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 1998. "Black Concentration Effects on Black-White and Gender Inequality: Multilevel Analysis for U.S. Metropolitan Areas." DOI:10.1093/sf/77.1.207. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 1998. "Replacing Housework in the Service Economy: Gender, Class, and Race-Ethnicity in Service Spending." DOI:10.1177/089124398012002006. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 1996. "Nationalism and Suffrage: Gender Struggle in Nation-Building America." DOI:10.1086/495103. [article]

Working papers, chapters and reports

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2022. “Rethinking marriage metabolism: The declining frequency of marital events in the United States.” [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. “How do we tell what’s true?” 2022. [SocArXiv]

  • Chen, Hao-Chun and Philip N. Cohen. “The Variability of Age at First Marriage across Birth Cohort and Education Level: A Case of Taiwan.” 2022. [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2022. “What’s the story? Family demography at the end of progress.” [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2022. “Projected lifetime prevalence of marriage for US Black and White women from a multiple decrement life table.” [SocArXiv]

  • Polka, Jessica, Iratxe Puebla, Damian Pattinson, Philip Hurst, Gary Mcdowell, Richard Sever, Thomas Lemberger, Michele Avissar-Whiting, Philip N. Cohen, Tony Ross-Hellauer, Gabriel Stein, Kathleen Shearer, Clare Stone, Victoria Tianjing Yan. 2022. “PRef: Describing Key Preprint Review Features.” [OSF Preprints]

  • Altman, Micah, Philip N. Cohen, and Jessica Polka. “Interventions in Scholarly Communication: Design Lessons from Public Health.” [MetaArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2021. “Injuries related to respiratory masks in the US.” [SocArXiv]

  • Altman, Micah, and Philip N. Cohen. “Openness and Diversity in Journal Editorial Boards.” 2021. [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2021. “Hard times and falling fertility in the United States.” [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2021. “Baby Bust: Falling Fertility in US Counties Is Associated with COVID-19 Prevalence and Mobility Reductions.” [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2021. “Host, Parasite, and Failure at the Colony Level: COVID-19 and the US Information Ecosystem.” [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2019. "The Rising Marriage Mortality Gap among Whites." Working paper. [SocArXiv | Materials]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2019. "Scholarly Communication in Sociology." PubPub. [Report]

  • Altman, M., Bourg, C., Cohen, P., Choudhury, G.S., Henry, C., Kriegsman, S., Minow, M., Selematsela, D., Sengupta, A., Suber, P. and Turnator, E. 2018. "A Grand Challenges-Based Research Agenda for Scholarly Communication and Information Science." PubPub. [Report]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2018. "ARL-SSRC Meeting on Open Scholarship in the Social Sciences: Prework Interview Report." [Report]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2018. "The Widening Political Divide Over Science." Working paper. [SocArXiv | Stata code]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2017. "Job Turnover and Divorce." Working paper. [SocArXiv | Materials]

  • Willow, Moriah, and P. N. Cohen. 2017 “Black and Hispanic Representation in Policing: Organizational and Local Labor Market Context.” May 31. [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2015. "Survey and Ethnography: Comment on Goffman’s 'On the Run.'" Working paper. [SocArXiv]

  • Cohen, Philip N., Heidi Hartmann, Jeffrey Hayes, and Chandra Childers. 2014. "Moynihan's Half Century: Have We Gone to Hell in a Hand Basket?" Council on Contemporary Families / Institute for Women’s Policy Research briefing paper. [report]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2014. "Fewer births and divorces, more violence: how the recession affected the American family" The Conversation/US. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2014. "Family Diversity is the New Normal for America's Children" Council on Contemporary Families Briefing Paper [paper]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2014. "Was the War on Poverty a Failure? Or Are Anti-Poverty Efforts Swimming Simply Against a Stronger Tide?" Council on Contemporary Families Briefing Paper [paper]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2014. "Divergent responses to family inequality." Chapter 2 in, Paul Amato, Alan Booth, Susan McHale, and Jennifer Van Hook (Eds), Families in an Era of Increasing Inequality: Diverging Destinies. New York: Springer. [paper]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2012. "Recession and Divorce in the United States: Economic Conditions and the Odds of Divorce, 2008-2010." Maryland Population Research Center Working Paper 2012-008. [paper]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2011. "Poverty, Hardship and Families: How Many People Are Poor, and What Does Being Poor in America Really Mean?" Council on Contemporary Families briefing paper. [paper]

  • P. N. Cohen and Wang Feng. 2009. "The Market and Gender Pay Equity: Have Chinese Reforms Narrowed the Gap?" In Creating Wealth and Poverty in Post-Socialist China, edited by Deborah S. Davis and Wang Feng. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. [book]

  • Judith Treas and P. N. Cohen. 2006. "Maternal Co-Residence and Contact: Evidence from Cross-National Surveys." In Allocating Public and Private Resources Across Generations, edited by Anne H. Gauthier, Cyrus Chu, and Shripad Tuljapurkar. New York: Springer. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 2006. "Not All Boats: Disability and Wellbeing among Single Mothers." Policy Brief. Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, UNC Chapel Hill. [report]

  • Liana Sayer, P. N. Cohen, and Lynne Casper. 2004. Women, Men and Work. In The American People: Census 2000 series published by Russell Sage Foundation & Population Reference Bureau. [report]

  • Suzanne Bianchi, P. N. Cohen, Sara Riley and Kei Nomaguchi. 2004. "Inequality in Parental Investment in Childrearing: Time, Expenditures and Health." Pp. 189-219 Kathryn Neckerman (Ed.), Social Inequality. Russell Sage Foundation. [article]

  • P. N. Cohen and Danielle MacCartney. 2004. "Inequality and the Family." In, Jacqueline L. Scott, Judith K. Treas and Martin Richards (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of the Family. Oxford: Blackwell. [article]

  • Cohen, Philip N. 1999. "Racial-Ethnic and Gender Differences in Returns to Cohabitation and Marriage: Evidence from the Current Population Survey." Population Division Working Paper No. 35. Population Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census. [article]

Research materials

Supporting materials, including data and code, are available for other projects on the Open Science Framework, here. Specifically:

Dissertation

  • Black Population Size and the Structure of United States Labor Market Inequality (Reeve Vanneman, Advisor). Available on Thesis Commons: here.

Commentary

Reviews, etc.

  • 2024. “Turning the Tide: A Value-Laden Proposition.” Review essay in Contemporary Sociology. DOI:10.1177/00943061241240874d. [long version preprint]

  • 2022. Divorce, American Style: Fighting for Women’s Economic Citizenship in the Neoliberal Era. Society for U.S. Intellectual History Book Reviews, 11 September [review]

  • 2019. “Public Engagement and the Influence Imperative.” Review essay in Contemporary Sociology. DOI:10.1177/0094306119827954 [preprint]

  • 2018. Review: Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, by Mark Regnerus. Men and Masculinities [preprint]

  • 2018. Panel Discussion: Ethnographic Evidence. Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy 13 Nw. J. L. & Soc. Pol'y. 138 (2018) [Transcript]

  • 2018. Panel Discussion: Author Meets Critic. Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy 13 Nw. J. L. & Soc. Pol'y. 108 (2018) [Transcript]

  • 2017. "Suzanne M. Bianchi (1952-2013)," in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd edition. [preprint]

  • 2016. Review: Labor's Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America, by Andrew J. Cherlin. [review]

  • 2016. Review: Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times, by Marianne Cooper. Gender & Society. [preprint]

  • 2015. Review: On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, by Alice Goffman. Social Forces online. DOI:10.1093/sf/sov113 [preprint]

  • 2015. Review: Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution, by Jo Paoletti. Boston Review. [online]

  • 2014. Review. Documenting Desegregation: Racial and Gender Segregation in Private-Sector Employment Since the Civil Rights Act, by Kevin Stainback and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey. Work and Occupations. [preprint]

  • 2014. “Don’t Trouble Yourself.” Review of A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, by Nicholas Wade. Boston Review June 23. [article PDF | original online]

  • 2013. “Still A Man’s World: The Myth of Women’s Ascendance.” Review of The Richer Sex, by Liza Mundy, and The End of Men, by Hanna Rosin. Boston Review. [article]

  • 2013. Review: The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What it Means for American Schools, by Thomas DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann. The Atlantic February 20. [article]

  • 2006. Sourcebook of Labor Markets: Evolving Structures and Processes, Evar Berg and Arne L. Kalleberg, eds. (2001). Social Forces.

  • Chrisin Hilgeman and P. N. Cohen. 2006. Review: Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men, Maria Charles and David B. Grusky (2004). Contemporary Sociology. [review]

  • 2006. "Social Class" Entry in The World Book Encyclopedia.[article]

  • 2005. Review: Class Practices: How Parents Help Their Children Get Good Jobs, Fiona Devine (2004). Contemporary Sociology.

  • 2002. Review: Glass Ceilings and Asian Americans: The New Face of Workplace Barriers, by Deborah Woo (2000). Review of Radical Political Economics. [article]

  • 2002. Review: Families, Households, and Society, by Graham Allan and Graham Crow (2001). Contemporary Sociology. [article]

  • 2001. Review: Acts of Dissent: New Developments in the Study of Protest, edited by Dieter Rucht, Ruud Koopmans, and Friedhelm Neidhart (1998). Mobilization.

  • 2001. Review: The Ties That Bind: Perspectives on Cohabitation and Marriage, edited by Linda J. Waite, with Christine Bachrach, Michelle Hindin, Elizabeth Thomson and Arland Thornton (2000). Contemporary Sociology. [article]

  • 2001. Review: Persistent Disparity: Race and Economic Inequality since 1945, by William A. Darity, Jr. and Samuel L. Myers, Jr. Review of Radical Political Economics. [article]

  • 2000. "Competition Theory and Human Ecology." In Racial and Ethnic Relations in America. Salem Press: Pasadena.

  • 1999. Review: The Racial Contract, by Charles W. Mills. Review of Radical Political Economics. [article]

Essays

  • “Pronatalism won’t work but the far right loves it anyway.” The Hill, November 6, 2024. [essay]

  • “How Sociology Can Save Itself.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 7, 2024. [essay]

  • “We are in a period of science policy innovation, yet there are major evidence gaps in evaluating their effectiveness.” Micah Altman and P. N. Cohen. LSE Impact Blog, July 27, 2023. [essay]

  • “Overturning Roe Is an Attack on the Modern Family.” The New Republic, May 3, 2022. [essay]

  • “La ciencia deficiente que justificó el uso de ivermectina en la Ciudad de México.” Nexos, February 8, 2022. [essay]

  • “Generation labels mean nothing. It’s time to retire them.” Washington Post, July 7, 2021. [essay]

  • “We sued Trump for blocking us on Twitter. This is why it was important despite how it ended.” NBC Think, April 5, 2021. [essay]

  • "On Clarifying the Goals of a Peer Review Taxonomy." Micah Altman and P. N. Cohen. Scholarly Kitchen, October 1, 2020. [essay]

  • "Learn the Right Lessons from Naomi Wolf’s Book Blunder." New Republic, May 29, 2019. [article]

  • "The divorce fairness issue that Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos don't have to worry about." CNN, January 11, 2019. [article]

  • "Millennials are getting divorced less but aren't living happily ever after." The Hill, September 28, 2018. [article]

  • "The failure of the success sequence." Cato Unbound, May 16, 2018. [article]

  • "The next stage of SocArXiv’s development: bringing greater transparency and efficiency to the peer review process." LSE Impact Blog, October 16, 2017. [article]

  • Photo essay: "It's better to be angry together" Contexts, Fall 2017 (vol 16, no 4). [PDF | Flickr]

  • "Families Are Changing—and Staying the Same." Educational Leadership, September 2017 (75[1]:46-50). [article]

  • "Norms and Laws: Why I’m Suing President Trump for Blocking Me on Twitter." The Daily Beast, July 11, 2017. [article]

  • "Developing SocArXiv: A new open archive of the social sciences to challenge the outdated journal system." LSE Impact Blog, July 11, 2016. [article]

  • "American policy fails at reducing child poverty because it aims to fix the poor." Washington Post (PostEverything), April 4, 2016. [article]

  • Sean McElwee and P. N. Cohen, "The vile core of Trump’s appeal: Here’s the research that shows how racism animates his campaign." Salon, March 27, 2016. [article]

  • Sean McElwee and P. N. Cohen, "The secret to Trump’s success: New research sheds light on the GOP front-runner’s stunning staying power." Salon, March 18, 2016. [article]

  • "Views on poverty, in the '60s and now." Letter to the New York Times, March 13, 2015. [letter]

  • "Exceptions overwhelm economic rules." New York Times Room for Debate, February 9, 2015. [article]

  • "The trouble with Disney's teeny, tiny princesses." Time.com, January 28, 2015. [article]

  • "Fewer births and divorces, more violence: how the recession affected the American family." The Conversation, December 12, 2015. [article]

  • "College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not on Campus" The Chronicle of Higher Education December 11, 2014. [article]

  • "To Prevent Poverty, Reduce the Penalty for Single-Motherhood." Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, December 2, 2013. [online version]

  • "Jump-Starting the Struggle for Equality." New York Times, Sunday Review, November 24, 2013, p. SR 9 (Great Divide series). [online version (longer) | print version]

  • "The Declining Birthrate Doesn't Spell Disaster" Time August 1, 2013. [article]

  • "Should Every Sociologist Blog?" ASA Footnotes July/August 2012. [article]

  • "The Daughter Deficit." Letter to the New York Times Magazine, September 2, 2009. [letter]

  • Statement prepared for, "Closing the Gap: Equal Pay for Women Workers," before the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee of the U.S. Senate April 12, 2007. [article]

  • "Why Crack the Whip on Welfare?" Durham Herald-Sun July 2, 2006. [article]

  • Affirmative Action for Whites. O.C. Weekly July 4, 2003. [article]