Bio

Allison Dunatchik earned her PhD in sociology and demography from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024, specializing in gender, family, social stratification and social demography. Prior to this, she received a Masters of Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science.   Her work has appeared in Gender & Society, Sociological Science and European Sociological Review, among others.

Research

Substantive research interests: family, gender, social stratification, social demography, and comparative social policy

Department cluster: Population and Health; Inequalities and Institutions

Research overview: Dunatchik studies how work, family and public policies shape gender inequalities in both economic outcomes and the allocation of time over the life course. Her scholarship is motivated by questions such as: Has the gender revolution stalled? To what extent is it unevenly realized? What policies – in the US and elsewhere – materially contribute to gender equality? How do individuals and couples navigate changing gender norms and shifting patterns in family demography across high-income countries?

Her work uses quantitative techniques and a wide range of large-scale, primarily longitudinal datasets from multiple countries to examine how gender inequalities are produced and reproduced over the course of different-sex romantic partnerships. In addition, her current work examines how earnings penalties associated with adult care responsibilities contribute to broader gender inequalities in the labor market, how gender inequalities in economic outcomes intersect with other key axes of inequality such as race and nativity, and the consequences of women’s growing economic power within different-sex couples for union dissolution.

Teaching

Sociology 391: Research Methods

Selected Publications

Dunatchik, Allison and Jacobs, Jerry A. 2024. “Gender Inequality in the U.S. During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in Families As They Really Are, 3rd ed. Edited by Barbara Risman and Virginia Rutter. New York: W.W. Norton.

Dunatchik, Allison. 2023. “Parenthood and the Gender Division of Labor across the Income Distribution: The Relative Importance of Relative Earnings.” European Sociological Review, 39(2):229-246.

Dunatchik, Allison. and Park, Hyunjoon. 2022. “Racial and Ethnic Difference in Homework time among U.S. Teens.” Sociological Perspectives, 65(6): 1144–1168.

Dunatchik, Allison, Gerson, Kathleen, Glass, Jennifer, Jacobs, Jerry A. and Stritzel, Haley. 2021. “Gender, Parenting and the Rise of Remote Work during the Pandemic: Implications for Domestic Inequality in the United States.” Gender & Society, 25(2): 194-205.

Dunatchik, Allison and Speight, Svetlana. 2020. “Re-examining how partner co-presence and multitasking affect parents’ enjoyment of childcare and housework.” Sociological Science, 7: 268-290.

Dunatchik, Allison and Özcan, Berkay. 2020. “Reducing Mommy Penalties with Daddy Quotas.” Journal of European Social Policy, 31(2): 175-191.

Dunatchik, Allison, Icardi, Rossella and Blake, Margaret. 2019. “Predicting Unmet Need for Social Care.” Journal of Long-Term Care, 2019: 194–205.