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Pilar Gonalons-Pons

Gonalons-Pons

Alber-Klingelfhofer Presidential Associate Professor

Associate Professor of Sociology

pgonalon@sas.upenn.edu

217 McNeil

Ph.D., Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014

I am the Alber-Klingelfhofer Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, with affiliations to the Population Studies Center, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. I have been a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (2021-2022). I received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and I was a postdoc at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

My research examines how gender, work, families, and public policies structure economic inequalities, with a particular focus on how inequalities change over time and over the life course. In my empirical work I typically use quantitative techniques and longitudinal datasets from multiple countries, but I have also used documents and interview data.

Much of my research is guided by the overall goal to develop a comprehensive understanding about the political economy of care and reproductive paid and unpaid work and its contribution to economic inequalities. I also have interests in understanding how and when change in gender culture occurs and how it shapes family dynamics.

In recent projects I show that changes in the division of paid and unpaid work play a key role in shaping economic inequalities within and between families (Gonalons-Pons et al. 2021; Musick et al. 2020); that gender culture is key to understanding the relationship between unemployment and divorce (Gonalons-Pons & Gangl 2021); that a basic income policy has potential to transform the economic foundations of romantic relationships (Gonalons-Pons & Calnitsky 2021) as well as patterns of crime including domestic violence (Calnitsky & Gonalons-Pons, 2020); and that employment labor protection policies successfully mitigate earnings losses associated with unemployment both in periods of recession and economic growth (Gonalons-Pons & Gangl 2021).

My research has appeared in American Sociological Review, Demography, Socio-Economic Review, Social Science Research, Social Problems, Demographic Research, and the RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.

PubMed Search
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Gonalons-Pons%20P&cauthor_id=34305448
Website(s)
Sociology Faculty Page
Personal Website
Google Scholar
Twitter
Research Themes
Formal Demography and Demographic Methods
Structures of Inequality and the Life Course
International Population Research

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Videos
  • Penn FQT/GSWS Care for the Future programme: Pilar Gonalons-Pons hosts discussion on Loira Limbal’s Through the Night

  • OPR Seminar Series: Pilar Gonalons-Pons on Reproductive Labor and the Structure of Inequality

  • Work and Family Disadvantage: Mechanisms of Gender Gaps in Paid Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic Work and Family Disadvantage: Mechanisms of Gender Gaps in Paid Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic
  • Care Labor Demand Shocks and Inequality: How Childcare Costs Exacerbate Inequality among American Families Care Labor Demand Shocks and Inequality: How Childcare Costs Exacerbate Inequality among American Families
  • Paid Family Leave and the Gender Division of Paid and Unpaid Work Paid Family Leave and the Gender Division of Paid and Unpaid Work
News
April 11, 2025

Pilar Gonalons-Pons Co-authors Study Linking Childcare Costs to Family Income Inequality, OMNIA

December 10, 2024

PSC & PARC Associates Co-authored Research on Worker Wage Stagnation Amid Rising Medicaid Home Care Spending, Penn LDI

February 21, 2024

Pilar Gonalons Pons received a U.S. National Science Foundation Sociology Grant

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  • The Persistent Feminization and Devaluation of Elder Care

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About Us

The Population Studies Center (PSC) at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) was founded in 1962 and stands as an international leader in research and training on the dynamic structure, organization, and health and well-being of human populations. The services that PSC provides have been funded by infrastructure grants awarded by the Population Dynamics Branch at Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) since 1978. The center and its associates are also supported by research grants and contracts awarded by federal agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and by private foundations. Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences is the administrative home of the PSC and provides generous dedicated support to the center.

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