From ‘Opt Out’ to Blocked Out: The Challenges for Labor Market Re-Entry After Family-Related Employment Lapses

Dr. Kate Weisshaar (UNC-CH Assistant Professor of Sociology; CPC Faculty Fellow)

Kate Weisshaar is a sociologist whose research focuses on gender and economic stratification processes within families, workplaces, and society, with an interest in developing critical tests of causal processes by leveraging data and quantitative methods. She is particularly interested in how macro-level inequalities in the labor force are reproduced through micro- and meso-level processes in the workplace, in families, and in the work-family intersection. Her recent work examined labor market outcomes associated with intermittent labor force participation, with a specific examination of how periods of unemployment or “opting out” of work for family reasons affect labor market outcomes upon re-entry, such as hiring prospects, wages, and occupational prestige. Kate received her PhD in Sociology from Stanford University, and has been an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at UNC-Chapel Hill and a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center since 2016.