nancy luke Phone: (401) 863-3239
Office: Mencoff 309
email: Nancy_Luke@brown.eduTitle: Assistant Professor, Sociology
Research Interests
Social demography, marriage and family, gender, reproductive health, Africa and South AsiaBackground
Nancy Luke joined the Department of Sociology as Assistant Professor in 2006, having served as Assistant Professor (Research) at the PSTC since 2003. Dr. Luke is also an affiliate of the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the International Health Institute at Brown. She holds a PhD in sociology and demography from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from Johns Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies ( SAIS), and a BA from Miami University ( Ohio). She also served as Research Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies from 2002-2005.Dr. Luke’s research focuses on the impact of social organization on health and well-being, particularly among women in developing countries. Her current work examines how community institutions, such as marriage, caste, and economic exchange, affect individual and couple behavior, including sexual relations in Kenya and intimate partner violence in India. She has designed and directed several large-scale surveys as well as conducted numerous qualitative studies. In support of this research, she has received grants from the National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.
Dr. Luke presently serves as Principal Investigator of an NIH-funded project that aims to improve quantitative methods for the collection of sexual behavior data in Kenya. Using a lifecourse approach, Dr. Luke and colleagues will construct retrospective relationship histories for young female and male respondents and interview these respondents’ romantic and sexual partners to create a unique matched non-marital partner sample. Data collection will take place in summer 2007.
Selected Publications
Nancy Luke. Forthcoming. “ Economic Status, Informal Exchange, and Sexual Risk in Kisumu, Kenya.” Economic Development and Cultural Change.
Nancy Luke and Kaivan Munshi. 2007. “Social Affiliation and the Demand for Health Services: Caste and Child Health in South India.” Journal of Development Economics 83(2):256-279.
Nancy Luke, Sidney Ruth Schuler, Bui Thi Thanh Mai, Pham Vu Thien, and Tran Hung Minh. 2007. “Exploring Couple Attributes and Attitudes and Marital Violence in Vietnam.” Violence Against Women 13(1):5-27 .
Nancy Luke. 2006. “Exchange and Condom Use in Informal Sexual Relationships in Urban Kenya.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 54(2):319-348.
Nancy Luke and Kaivan Munshi. 2006. “New Roles for Marriage in Urban Africa: Kinship Networks and the Labor Market in Kenya.” Review of Economics and Statistics 88(2):264-282.
Nancy Luke. 2006. “Local Meanings and Census Categories: Widow Inheritance and the Position of Luo Widows in Kenya.” In Etienne van de Walle, ed. African Households: Censuses and Surveys. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
Nancy Luke. 2005. “Confronting the ‘Sugar Daddy’ Stereotype: Age and Economic Asymmetries and Risky Sexual Behavior in Urban Kenya.” International Family Planning Perspectives 31(1):6-14 .
Nancy Luke. 2005. “Investigating Exchange in Sexual Relationships in Sub-Saharan Africa using Survey Data.” In Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, Iqbal Shah, and Shyam Thapa, eds. Sex without Consent: Young People in Developing Countries. London: Zed Books.
Nancy Luke. 2003. “Age and Economic Asymmetries in the Sexual Relationships of Adolescent Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Studies in Family Planning 34(2):67-86.
Nancy Luke and Susan Cotts Watkins. 2002. “Reactions of Developing Country Elites to International Population Policy.” Population and Development Review 28(4):707-733.
