michael j. white
Office: cabinet 112
email: Michael_White@brown.eduTitle: Director, Population Studies and Training Center; Professor of Sociology
Departmental affiliation(s): Sociology
Background info:
Michael White received his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1980 from the University of Chicago. He joined the Sociology Department and the PSTC at Brown in 1989, after previously serving at Princeton University and the Urban Institute. White has held a series of external grant awards from NIH, NSF, and private foundations. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Urban Population Dynamics. White has served on the Board of Directors of the Population Association of America, and he is currently chair of the NICHD Population Studies Committee. He serves on the scientific advisory committee of the INDEPTH network of demographic surveillance systems in developing countries. At Brown, White is a member of the initiative in Spatial Structures on the Social Sciences and a faculty fellow of the Watson Institute of International Studies.Research interests:
Population Distribution, Urbanization, and Migration. Immigration, Ethnic Residential Segregation. African Demography. Contextual Effects in Demographic Change. Demographic Methods.Current research:
White is principal investigator of “Urbanization, Health and Environmental Quality in Coastal Ghana,” (NIH) which builds on his prior support from the Macarthur Foundation on Population-Environment interactions in the region. The project is an interdisciplinary investigation of demographic change in a sensitive region of a transitioning society. Collaborators include sociologists, geographers, public health experts, anthropologist, and marine biologists. The project also brings together multi-method investigation involving secondary data, primary survey fieldwork, and qualitative methods. Central themes of the research involve the study of environmental and health attitudes, the role of urbanization and migration in demographic change, and the study of anthropogenic impacts on coastal lagoons. (Project website)White is also co-investigator (with David Kertzer) of “Explaining Low Fertility in Italy.” This multi-method, interdisciplinary project seeks to understand the structural and interpersonal determinants of the surprisingly persistent pattern of low birth rates in Italy. White’s involvement concentrates on the analysis of new, nationally representative longitudinal data, testing specifically for contextual effects in nuptiality and fertility.
White continues to be active in several other projects. He maintains a strong presence in the methodological analysis of residential segregation and urbanization. Recent work has included new applications of statistical methods and GIS to the study of ethnic intermingling. White continues a long-term research effort in immigrant adjustment. This collaboration with Jennifer Glick (ASU) and others has used longitudinal data to examine the assimilation of immigrants in schooling, labor market, and family formation.
Downloadable papers:
White, Glick, and Kim Microsegregation
Kim, White, Glick PanethnicitySelected publications:
“Mapping Social Segregation” (with J. Glick and A. Kim). Sociological Methods and Research, forthcoming.“Internal Migration” (with D. Lindstrom). In D. Poston and M. Micklin Handbook of Demography, forthcoming.
“ Post-Secondary School Participation of Immigrant and Native Youth: The Role of Familial Resources and Educational Expectations” (with J. Glick). Social Science Research 33 (June 2004): 272-299.
Migration, Community Context, and Child Immunization in Ethiopia” (with G. Kiros), Social Science and Medicine, 59 (December 2004): 2603-2616.
National Research Council, Cities Transformed: Demographic Change and its Implications in the Developing World. Washington DC: National Academy Press, 2003. Contribution as a member of the NAS Panel on Urban Dynamics.
“The Academic Trajectories of Immigrant Youth: Analysis Within and Between Cohorts.” (with J. Glick). Demography 40 (November 2003) 759-783.
“Environmental Hazards, Migration, and Race” (with L. Hunter, J. Sutton, and J. Little). Population and Environment, 25 (September 2003): 23-39.
