Overview
I am a PhD candidate in Sociology at Cornell University, with a minor in Demography. I hold a MA in Applied Quantitative Research from New York University (NYU) and a BA in English and Literature from Beijing Foreign Studies University.
I am a quantitative sociologist with research interests in gender, social stratification & mobility, and spatial demography. Much of my research on gender inequality uses demographic concepts and methods to examine the sources of disparities in women and men’s occupations and pay, focusing on how these labor market outcomes are affected by dynamics in the family and the education system. I also examine factors that affect spatial and social mobility, such as the impact of local labor markets on internal migration, and the influence of education and family background on income and career outcomes. By integrating these themes, my work aims to uncover the social processes driving inequality and social mobility across generations and the life course. You can check out my personal website for more details and the specific projects in my three main lines of research on gender inequality in labor market outcomes, the geography of stratification & spatial mobility, and inter- & intra-generational social mobility.
My research has been published in Demography and Chinese Journal of Sociology. I received the Kerckhoff Award from the Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility (RC28), the Robin M. Williams, Jr. Best Graduate Student Paper Award from Cornell's sociology department, and the Master's Award for Academic Achievement in the Social Sciences from NYU.
Subfields
Gender Inequality, Social stratification & Mobility, Spatial Demography, Quantitative and Computational Methods
Publications
Zheng, Haowen, Kim A. Weeden. 2023. “How Gender Segregation in Higher Education Contributes to Gender Segregation in the U.S. Labor Market” Demography, 60(3), 761-784.
Zheng, Haowen. 2020. “The Only-child Premium and Moderation by Social Origin: Educational Stratification in Post-reform China.” Chinese Journal of Sociology, 6(3): 384-409.
Working Papers
Zheng, Haowen. “Diverging Trajectories: Gender Inequality in the Life Course Effects of Family Migration among Married Couples” (Dissertation chapter, under review)
- Kerckhoff Award, RC28
- Robin M. Williams, Jr. Best Paper Award, Cornell Sociology department (given annually for the best graduate student paper)
Zheng, Haowen, Siwei Cheng, “Social Rigidity Across and Within Generations: A Predictive Approach” (Revise and Resubmit)
Zheng, Haowen, Kristian B. Karlson, Anders Holm, and Robert Andersen, “College is Not ‘the’ Equalizer: Some Evidence on the Role of Unobserved Heterogeneity” (Working paper)
Rich, Peter, Haowen Zheng and Christian Sprague. “Inequality in the Competition for Access to High-Achieving and High-Growth Schools Across Metropolitan Area Housing Markets” (Working paper)
Dissertation Committee
Kim Weeden (Chair), Vida Maralani, Peter Rich, Siwei Cheng (New York University)
Teaching
Teaching Interests: Gender & Sexuality, Inequality & Stratification, and Quantitative Methods
Teaching certificates from Cornell’s Center for Teaching Innovation:
- Course Design Institute Certificate, Spring 2023
- Active Learning Institute Certificate, Spring 2022