Graduate Sociology at UAlbany

Areas of Specialization: Work, Labor Markets & Organizations

The University at Albany Sociology Department is an excellent place to study work, economy, and organizations. Several faculty focus their research in this area and many others address work-related themes in the context of research on family, community, gender, race/ethnicity, and demographic trends. Many graduate students choose a work- or organizations-related subfield as one of their two areas of specialization. The faculty have exceptionally broad research interests in this area, employ a wide range of methodologies in their research, and draw research questions from diverse theoretical orientations. Among the research topics that faculty and graduate students have addressed recently are: bureaucracy and its alternatives, cross-cultural comparisons of work and organizations, economic stratification, entrepreneurship and its social supports, institutionalization, gender and work, labor markets, the medical division of labor, occupational mobility, organizational innovation, racial-ethnic inequality in the workplace, the school- to-work transition, the state and its impact on organizations and institutions, and work and family issues.

Courses regularly taught in the Sociology Department

• Soc 553 Social Stratification
• Soc 642 Sociology of Work
• Soc 654 Complex Organizations and Bureaucracy
• Soc 666 Special Topics: Gender, Race, and Work

Other Special Topics Courses may be offered periodically, such as economic sociology, or occupations and professions, if there is student demand for them. Related courses are often offered in other departments and colleges as well, such as in public administration, business, history, and psychology.

Recent Dissertations  

• Hanna, Jeanine. 2011. “More Than A Gender Issue: Integrating Race Into the Analysis of Work-Family Balance Among Dual-Earner Couples”
• Pais, Jeremy. 2010. “Multiethnic Labor Markets and Socioeconomic Mobility: A Career Trajectory Perspective"
• Layne, China. 2010. "Losing the Competition: A Multi-Level Analysis of Over-Education in the United States, 1971-2006.
• Bunyan, Laura A. 2009 "Modern Day Mary Poppins: Uncovering the Work of Nannies and the Expectations of Employers"
• Branch, Enobong Hannah. 2007 "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Black Women, A Century in the Bottom Class, 1860 - 1960."
• Mills, Laura. 2007. "Independent Consultants - A case study on a type of highly-skilled contingent labor"
• Morett, Christopher. 2006. "Work, Flexibility, Work Culture and Gender."
• Hulbert, Melanie. 2005. "Lessons From The Office: The Organizational Implementation of Work-Family Policies."
• Nagi, Omar. 2005. "Productivity Measures as a Source of the Displacement of Social Goals."
• McCormick, Charles. 2004. “The Big Project That Never Ends: Role and Task Negotiation Within an Emerging Occupational Community.”
• Tice, Jennifer. 2004. “Harnessing Organizational Change: The Effect of Four Elements on Organizational Outcomes.”
• Laube, Heather. 2003 “Professional Goals and Political Commitments: Challenges for Feminist Academic Sociologists.”
• Popp, Anne Marie. 2003. “Childhood Nutrition Assistance Program: An Organizational Analysis.”
• Torlina, Jeff. 2003. “The Meaning of Working for Working Class Men: Recasting the Image of Blue Collar Work.”
• Wallingford, Kristen. 2003. “Markets, Networks and Identity: An Analysis of the Culturally Embedded Structure of Lesbian and Gay Businesses.”

Faculty in Work, Labor Markets, and Organizations

Elizabeth Popp Berman
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley

Professor Berman’s training is in organizations (particularly organizational institutionalism) and work (particularly the professions).  She also has interests in economic and political sociology, comparative-historical methods, and the sociology of science and knowledge.  Her book, Creating the Market University: How Academic Science Became an Economic Engine,asks why universities transformed their relationship with the marketplace over the course of several decades, focusing on the effects of policy and ideas about the economic impact of science and technology.  Her current project, which is less explicitly organizational but is still informed by literature on organizations and the professions, examines how economic expertise affects policymaking in the U.S.

Representative publications:

• Berman, Elizabeth Popp. 2012. Creating the Market University: How Academic Science Became an Economic Engine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Berman, Elizabeth Popp. 2012. “Explaining the Move toward the Market in Academic Science: How Institutional Logics Can Change without Institutional Entrepreneurs.” Theory and Society.
• Berman, Elizabeth Popp. 2006. “Before the Professional Project: Success and Failure at Creating an Organizational Representative for English Doctors.” Theory and Society 35:157-191.

Christine E. Bose
Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University

Professor Bose’s academic interests lie in the areas of stratification, labor market issues, and gender studies, especially global gender inequalities and race/ethnicity differences among women. She has published in the areas of occupational prestige and status attainment, women’s employment and poverty as it varies by ethnicity, the social impact of household technology, women’s work in the US the turn of the century, gender and development in Latin America, gender and job satisfaction in China, women’s global carework and migration, and transnational gender research. Seven of her eight book publications focus on gender and work.

Representative publications:

• Bose, Christine E. and Marzán, Gilbert. 2003. “Exodus from the Northeast: Changing Economic Opportunities for Puerto Rican Women and Men.” Latino(a) Research Review 5(2-3): 59-76.
• Bose, Christine E. 2001. Women in 1900: Gateway to the Political Economy of the 20th Century. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
• Bose, Christine E. and Rachel Bridges Whaley. 2001. “Sex Segregation in the U.S. Labor Force.” In Gender Mosaics: Social Perspectives, edited by Dana Vannoy. Boston: Roxbury.

Peter D. Brandon
Ph.D. University of Chicago
Professor Brandon’s research focuses on work-family balance, low-income labor markets, and barriers to employment among workers with disabilities and families raising children with disabilities.  Brandon’s research suggest that disabilities remain an impediment for full participation in the labor market and that long-term health conditions and disabilities further complicate finding the balance between work and family responsibilities.  Currently, Brandon is researching the growth of non-standard work hours among mothers and the implications that growth might have on the organization of the household, housework by fathers, and children’s wellbeing. 

Representation publications: 

• Brandon, Peter D. 2011. “Time for Work and Work Timing among Married Couples Raising Children with Disabilities in Australia.” International Journal of Sociology, Vol. 41, no. 1. Pp. 6-26.
• Brandon, Peter D., Sandra Hofferth, and Dennis P. Hogan. 2008. “Do Disabilities Hasten Ex-TANF Recipients Returns to Welfare?” Social Science Research. Vol. 37 (2), pp. 530-543.
• Brandon, Peter D. and Jeromey Temple. 2007. "Family Provisions at the Workplace and Their Relationship to Absenteeism, Retention, and Productivity of Workers Using Prior Data." Australian Journal of Social Issues Vol. 42, No. 4. pp.
• Brandon, Peter D. 2007. “Time Away From ‘Smelling The Roses’: Where Do Mothers Raising Children With Disabilities Find the Time to Work?” Social Science and Medicine Vol. 65, 667-679.
  

Karyn Loscocco
Ph.D. Indiana University

Professor Loscocco's research focuses on work inequality, the structure of work and personal lives, employee reactions to work, and the unique employment status of small business owners. Past publications have challenged the view that blue collar workers are instrumentally oriented to their work, looked at age and gender patterns in work structures and work attitudes within the U.S. and in Japan and China, examined the impact of internal labor markets on employee commitment to work, and addressed gender inequality in the small business sector. Professor Loscocco conducted a face-to-face survey of self-employed women and men to examine economic outcomes, definitions of success, and linkages between work and family lives. Current research looks at the connections between the work-family system and marriage, and best practices for workplace diversity. Professor Loscocco has served on the editorial boards of Work and Occupations and the Journal of Vocational Behavior.
Representative publications:

• Forthcoming, Karyn Loscocco and Sharon Bird. Gendered Paths: Why Women Lag Behind Men in Small Business Success” Work and Occupations

• 2007. Loscocco, Karyn and Glenna Spitze. “Gender Patterns in Provider Role Attitudes and Behavior.” Journal of Family Issues 28:934-954.
• 2005. Saidel, Judith R., and Karyn Loscocco. “Agency Leaders, Gendered Institutions, and Representative Bureaucracy.” Public Administration Review 65:158-170.
• 1997. Loscocco, Karyn A. “Work-Family Linkages among Self-Employed Women and Men.” Journal of Vocational Behavior 50:204-226.

Lawrence Raffalovich
Ph.D. Indiana University

Professor Raffalovich studies social inequality, economic sociology, and quantitative research methods. Recent publications investigate the distribution of national income between property owners and wage earners in the capitalist democracies, and the impact of political and economic institution on this aspect of economic inequality. Current projects include research on the relationship between income inequality and economic development, and on the characteristics of families at different locations on the family income distribution.
Representative publications:

• Lawrence E. Raffalovich, Shannon M. Monnat, and Hui-shien Tsao. 2007. “The Family Income Distribution: Income Components and Demographic Characteristics.” Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, August, 2007.
• Lawrence E. Raffalovich and Elena Vesselinov. 2004. “The Power of Property in Comparative Perspective”. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 20:361-384.
• Lawrence E. Raffalovich. 1999. "Growth and Distribution: Evidence From a Variable-Parameter Cross-National Time-Series Analysis”. Social Forces 78:415-432.

James Zetka
Professor Zetka is interested generally in occupations and professions, organizational theory, industrialization, and technological innovation. His recent research focuses on how and why radical innovations were introduced into the occupational division of labor governing American medicine. He has studied endoscopic technologies used in gastrointestinal medicine extensively. He is currently working on a project examining a host of radical innovations introduced into obstetrics and gynecology, including psychopathology as a diagnostic category, the primary care role, endoscopic and laparoscopic technologies, subspecialties, and women recruits.
Selected Publications:

• Zetka, James R., Jr. 2011. “Establishing Specialty Jurisdictions in Medicine: The Case of American Obstetrics and Gynaecology.” Sociology of Health and Illness 33(6): 837-52.
• Zetka, James R., Jr. 2008. “The Making of the ‘Women’s Physician’ in American Obstetrics and Gynecology: Re-Forging an Occupational Identity and a Division of Labor.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior49:335-351.
• Zetka, James R., Jr. 2008. “Radical Logics and Their Carriers in Medicine: The Case of Psychopathology and American Obstetricians and Gynecologists.” Social Problems 55:95-116.
• Zetka, James R., Jr. 2003. Surgeons and the Scope. Ithaca, NY: ILR, Cornell University Press.

--March 2012