National Symposium on Family Issues

For more than 25 years, the Family Symposium has focused on topics that appeal to, and are presented by, scholars from multiple disciplines who study family issues. Scholars in family research convene to present and critique research on the focal topic, consider future directions for research, and discuss how programs and public policy can effectively improve the state of families.
Each year, Penn State’s Population Research Institute and Social Science Research Institute, along with departments and centers in the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Health & Human Development, hold a two-day symposium focused on a key issue facing families. Each fall, about 200 scholars and policy experts attend what is now known as the National Symposium on Family Issues to consider a theme of multidisciplinary interest.
The Family Symposium is designed to focus on topics that appeal to (and are presented by) scholars from multiple disciplines who study family issues. Nine of the top scholars in the field of family research convene to present and critique research on the focal topic, consider future directions for research, and discuss how programs and public policy can effectively improve the state of families. The event gathers distinguished researchers, young scholars, and students in diverse fields like family studies, child development, sociology, psychology, education, economics, anthropology, and policy studies, as well as health and human service providers and policy makers.
Past symposia have focused on issues such as: emerging methods in family research, African American families, diverging destinies of families in an era of increasing inequality, transitions to adulthood, and Hispanic children in immigrant families.
Attendees include Penn State students, faculty, and alumni; students and faculty from other institutions; community, state, and national policy makers; program staff; and social service administrators. The symposium is co-funded annually by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a number of Penn State departments and centers, including the Population Research Institute and the Social Science Research Institute.
Students are exposed to some of the most important issues in family science and become better scholars and practitioners by learning about the dimensions and complexity of problems facing families. Each symposium includes a reception designed to encourage students to network with world-renowned family scholars. Graduate students are also invited to attend a luncheon with their choice of presenters.
The symposium is organized by Susan M. McHale, Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, and Director of the Social Science Research Institute and Children, Youth and Families Consortium; Valarie King, Professor of Sociology, Demography, and Human Development, and Director of the Family Demography Training Program at the Population Research Institute; and Jennifer Glick, Director, Population Research Institute and Professor of Sociology.
NSFI Book Series
Books based on each symposium bring the event to an even wider audience. The volumes have received favorable reviews and are used as reference works by faculty, students, and practitioners. The symposium is a landmark event each year in the ongoing study of families. It reaches a wide audience and affects the national conversation on a very important topic. View previous symposia and books.
Next Symposium
28th Annual National Symposium on Family Issues
October 26-27, 2020
Virtual
For more information, please contact:
Carolyn Scott
css7@psu.edu
De Jong Lecture in Social Demography

This annual event features presentations and discussions with prominent scholars on topics in social demography. It is supported by the Gordon F. and Caroline M. De Jong Lectureship in Social Demography Endowment.
Brown Bag Series

Our popular Brown Bag Series provides a regular forum for PRI faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students to exchange ideas. If you are unable to physically attend a Brown Bag you are interested in, we also stream and record them.
The Integration Challenges of African Immigrants
Findings from an Ethnographic Study of Liberians in PittsburghDate: Feb 16, 2021
Presented by: Dr. Yolanda Covington-Ward
The PSU Population Research Institute & Syracuse University CPR/Lerner Center Joint Symposium
Population Health, Children and Family PolicyDate: Jan 26, 2021
Presented by: Shannon Monnat, Leonard Lopoo, Christian Connell, Amy Schwartz, Andrew Fenelon, Erica Frankenberg, Colleen Heflin, Léa Pessin, Sarah Damaske
PRI Graduate Students Flash Talks
Date: Nov 10, 2020
Presented by: Matt Brooks, Marco Faytong-Haro, Joeun Kim, Jane Lankes, Saman Naz
Link-tracing designs for the study of migration
Results from the Chinese Immigrants in the Raleigh-Durham Area (ChIRDU) StudyDate: Oct 13, 2020
Presented by: Dr. Giovanna Merli
The Place-Based Turn in Federal Policy
Implications for Urban Demography & InequalityDate: Sep 29, 2020
Presented by: Dr. Laura Tach
Have Changing Family Demographics Narrowed the Gender Wage Gap?
Date: Sep 15, 2020
Presented by: Dr. Alexandra Killewald
Wealth Inequality in Young Adulthood
Defining the Black Middle ClassDate: Feb 11, 2020
Presented by: Dr. Fenaba Addo
An Gene-Environment Study of the Unhealthy Assimilation Hypothesis of Obesity in US Hispanic/Latinos
Date: Jan 28, 2020
Presented by: Dr. Lindsay Fernandez-Rhodes
Population, Health & Environment Flash Talks
Date: Jan 21, 2020
Presented by: Yubraj Acharya, Guangqing Chi, Heather Randell, Asher Rosinger, and Alexis Santos
The Social Context of Influence, Coercion, and Control
Intimate Relationships and Reproductive BehaviorsDate: Dec 03, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Jennifer Barber
Gender Minority Parents
Family Creation, Child Outcomes, & Couple DynamicsDate: Nov 12, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Samantha Tornello
A Demographer's Perspective on Longterm Social Change: 1972-2018
Date: Oct 29, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Michael Hout
Age at immigration, generational status, and death among children of immigrant mothers
A longitudinal analysis of siblingsDate: Oct 08, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Neil K. Mehta
Connecting the Dots
Using social network analysis to untangle the factors driving international migrationDate: Sep 24, 2019
Presented by: Cassandra McMillan
Childbearing and women's mid-life well-being in a low-income, high-fertility context
Date: Sep 10, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Sarah Hayford
Time to Mainstream Environment into Migration Theory?
Date: Apr 23, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Lori Hunter
Labor shortage or labor strife?
Worker perspectives on the labor supply problem on Pennsylvania mushroom farmsDate: Apr 02, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Kathleen Sexsmith
Long-Term Decline in Intergenerational Mobility in the U.S. Since 1850
Date: Mar 19, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Xi Song
Is there a Global Second Demographic Transition?
World Trends and Education, Health, and Economic Correlates from 1960-2010.Date: Feb 26, 2019
Presented by: Dr. David Baker, Dr. Ashton Verdery, Erik Hernandez, Anne Morse, Hyerim Kim
Exposure to Violence and Malnutrition of Children in Iraq
Date: Jan 29, 2019
Presented by: Dr. Yubraj Acharya
Data Collection as Disruption
Insights from a Longitudinal Study of Young AdulthoodDate: Nov 06, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Jennifer Trinitapoli
Networks, Diffusion and Inequality
Date: Oct 16, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Filiz Garip
Does the Transition to Grandparenthood Deter Gray Divorce?
A Test of the Braking HypothesisDate: Oct 09, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Susan Brown
Young Women's Unrealized Educational Expectations and Mental Health
Evidence from MalawiDate: Sep 25, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Emily Smith Greenaway
Using Response Time to Model Cognition, Cognitive & Physical Decline and Mortality in Social Science Surveys
Date: Sep 11, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Seth Sanders
Beyond Discrimination: Why Vigilance Matters for Population Health
Date: Apr 17, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Hedwig Lee
Economic Volatility and Family Building Behaviors during the Transition to Adulthood
Date: Apr 03, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Shannon Cavanagh
Liminal Legality and Education
Evidence from Salvadoran Child MigrantsDate: Mar 27, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Matthew Hall
Demographic and Health Impacts of Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa
Date: Mar 13, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Brian Theide
Data Security at Penn State
Date: Feb 27, 2018
Presented by: Donald Welch
The PSU Administrative Data Accelerator
Date: Feb 13, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Daniel Max Crowley
Finding a Living Kidney Donor
Preliminary EvidenceDate: Jan 30, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Jonathan Daw
Adverse Childhood Experiences, Early and Nonmarital Fertility, and Women’s Health at Midlife
Date: Jan 09, 2018
Presented by: Dr. Kristi Williams
Where college graduates move
Human capital, locational attractivity, and interstate migration in the USDate: Dec 05, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Richard A. Wright
The “Choices” that Individuals Make
Demography's Perspectives on Stratified Reproduction, Gender, and Choice in our Neoliberal WorldDate: Oct 19, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Nancy Riley
Diverse Origins, Disparate Outcomes
The New Landscape of Black AmericaDate: Oct 17, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Tod G. Hamilton
A Real Disaster
How Rising Costs of Natural Hazards Are Increasing Social Inequality in AmericaDate: Oct 10, 2017
Presented by: Dr. James Elliott
Cohabitation Nation: Race, Class, and the Remaking of Relationships
Date: Sep 26, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Sharon Sassler
Dissolution, Conflict and Australian Children's Developmental Outcomes
Date: Sep 19, 2017
Presented by: Dr. David Ribar
Using mixed-methods to examine public beliefs about the link between housing affordability and health
Results from a national surveyDate: Sep 12, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Selena Ortiz
Life course employment patterns among Black, Hispanic, and White Women
Date: Apr 04, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Léa Pessin
Genetic Endowments, Educational Attainment, and Social Mobility
Date: Mar 28, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Jason Fletcher
Deporting the American Dream
Date: Mar 21, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Jacob Rugh
Where 'Old Heads' Prevail
Age and Inmate Status in Men's Prison UnitDate: Feb 07, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Derek Kreager
Car Crashes, Drug Overdoses, Suicides, & MURDERS
Predictors of Early Death in High School & BeyondDate: Jan 24, 2017
Presented by: Dr. Rob Warren
Demography in the Big Data Revolution
Date: Oct 18, 2016
Presented by: Dr. Stephanie Bohon
Population Dynamics After a Natural Disaster
Date: Apr 26, 2016
Presented by: Dr. Elizabeth Frankenberg
Constructing Crime and Justice
Eliciting, Engaging, and Evaluating Evidence about Mass IncarcerationDate: Apr 19, 2016
Presented by: Dr. Becky Pettit
A Structural Approach to Intergroup Contact
Implications for Health Behavior and AttitudesDate: Feb 09, 2016
Presented by: Dr. Sarah Cowan
Extensive Evidence of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Disability Identification in U.S. Schools
Date: Jan 19, 2016
Presented by: Dr. Paul Morgan
Heterogeneity at Birth, Obesity in Childhood and Hypertension in Adults
A Population Level Approach to Developmental ProgrammingDate: Oct 20, 2015
Presented by: Dr. Timothy Gage
Motivating the Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes Project
Date: Oct 13, 2015
Presented by: Dr. Jennifer Glick
School Performance and Mortality
The Role of Work and Family Trajectories Across the Life CourseDate: Sep 29, 2015
Presented by: Dr. James Raymo
The Social Stratification of Aging and Health
Combining Race, Gender, SES and Age to Test Multiple-Hierarchy Stratification and Life Course HypothesesDate: Apr 21, 2015
Presented by: Dr. Tyson Brown
The Consequences of Concentrating Former Prisoners in the Same Neighborhoods
A Natural ExperimentDate: Apr 14, 2015
Presented by: Dr. David Kirk
Marriage, Cohabitation, and Health
Date: Mar 24, 2015
Presented by: Dr. Paul Amato
Casual Effects of Single-Sex Schools on Adolescents' Weight
Date: Mar 03, 2015
Presented by: Dr. Hyunjoon Park
Clifford Clogg Memorial Lecture Series

Established in 1996 in honor of Clifford C. Clogg and organized by the departments of Statistics and Sociology, the Clifford Clogg Memorial Lecture Series brings internationally known scholars to Penn State for two days of lectures and informal discussions.
Dr. Clogg was nationally and internationally known for his work in quantitative methods and demography, particularly on the analysis of rates, standardization methods, and latent structure analysis. Contributions from friends and colleagues led to the creation of the Clifford C. Clogg Memorial Lectureship fund. The fund was endowed in 1996. Leo Goodman gave the inaugural lecture on September 27, 1996.
A native of Oberlin, Ohio, Clifford C. Clogg earned his B.A. in sociology from Ohio University in 1971, an M.A. in sociology and an M.S. in statistics in 1974, and his Ph.D. in sociology in 1977, all from the University of Chicago. He joined Penn State as an assistant professor of sociology in 1976 and rapidly moved through the ranks until he was designated a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Professor of Statistics in 1990.
Dr. Clogg wrote extensively on the statistical analysis of categorical data, covering loglinear models, cohort analysis, association models, and mobility tables. His research had received continuous funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) since 1979. Dr. Clogg
served on the NSF advisory panel for the sociology program and on the NSF advisory panel for measurement, methods and statistics in the social sciences.
His honors included being named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He was elected a member of the Sociological Research Association in 1987 and received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award from the Methodology Section of the American Sociological Association for his technical contributions to social research. He also received a Special Creativity Award from the National Science Foundation and a Significant Achievement Award from Ohio University.
Dr. Clogg provided considerable editorial service to the Journal of the American Statistical Association culminating in the coordinating and applications editorship (1989-1991). In addition, he was an active member of the American Sociological Association, the Population
Association of America, and numerous other professional societies. This extraordinary level of external involvement did not keep Professor Clogg from being a key contributor to his two departments at Penn State. Besides fulfilling a double set of department duties, he supervised a total of twelve master degree students and thirteen Ph.D. students in statistics and sociology. These students now hold a variety of positions in government and academe.
Graduate Student Methodology Workshops

Organized by the graduate students in the dual degree program in demography, this annual workshop provides an opportunity for students and faculty to expand their methodological knowledge and interact with both local and national experts.
Organized by the graduate students in the Dual-degree in Demography program
The Population Research Institute (PRI) Graduate Student Methodology Workshops were initiated in 1994 by Dennis Hogan, PRI Director, and Gordon De Jong, Director of the Demography Program, to enhance the breadth and depth of training in demographic methods for PRI's Dual-Title Graduate Degree students. The goals of the workshop series are to empower students to identify important methodological issues, to expand their analytical skills related to those issues, and to take responsibility for inviting noted lecturers with whom they ordinarily would not interact. In addition, the workshop gives students experience in developing and managing a scientific conference.
Previous workshop topics have included:
- Population Projections, 26th Annual Workshop, May 14, 2019
- Hard to Reach Populations, 25th Annual Workshop, May 16, 2018
- Mixed Methods, 24th Annual Workshop, May 16, 2017
- Agent-Based Modeling, 23rd Annual Workshop, May 17, 2016
- Biodemography of Exceptional Longevity, 22nd Annual Workshop, June 15, 2015
Working Groups

Working groups consist of faculty and students who share a common substantive interest. Working groups convene regularly to assess the state and trajectory of new science within a specialty area of demographic research, provide a venue for critical peer reaction to ongoing or planned work, and to create an academic setting that sparks creative ideas and catalyzes the development of collaborative and multidisciplinary research projects.
If you are interested in joining a working group, contact the organizer. If you would like to organize a new working group, please contact Sarah Damaske. We will work with you to develop your idea and identify faculty who may be interested.
PRI Family Demography Working Group
This group provides a forum for scholars focused on family adaptations to shifting social and economic conditions such as changing cultural and gender norms, global economy, and the nature of the workforce. This group also addresses the importance of demographic processes that shape social and kinship networks that in turn influence family member’s well-being and caregiving capacity.
Contact Molly Martin for more information.
PRI Population Health Working Group
This working group brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers using multiple methodological tools and cutting-edge data collection to understand the biopsychosocial determinants of health and health trajectories across the life course. Researchers also discuss ongoing projects addressing social disparities in health across the life course and wellbeing along multiple time scales.
Contact JD Daw for more information.
PRI Grant Writing Working Group
This group is for those who are actively planning or writing an external grant with a PDB (Population Dynamics Branch) focus.
Contact Jen Glick for more information.
PRI Environmental Demography Working Group
The goal of this working group is to bring together researchers with interests in relationships between the natural environment and population processes broadly defined. Monthly meetings will offer opportunities for members to present work in progress, discuss new and innovative publications in the field of environmental demography, and develop collaborative research ideas.
Contact Heather Randell for more information.
PRI Communities and Place Working Group
The goal of the group is to facilitate discussion on this topic and provide a venue for faculty members and graduate students to share and receive feedback on related projects which they seek to turn into publications.
Contact John Iceland for more information