Hunter Wade York
I am a fourth-year PhD student at Princeton University in the Department of Sociology and the Office of Population Research, and my research interests revolve around social stratification, work, and organizations. Prior to Princeton, I received an MPH in Global Health from the University of Washington and an AB in Human Evolutionary Biology and Music from Harvard. Though my academic trajectory seems a bit convoluted, there's a clear commitment in my work to understanding humans in the collective sense, with an eye for manufactured inequalities and underlying heterogeneity.
My dissertation will be in in three parts, all centered on the role of work in producing inequalities. The first chapter looks at the inheritance of occupations intergenerationally, expanding current class-based categorical understandings of occupational inheritance to one that is gradational and multi-dimensional. The second examines organizational variability in work arrangements as they respond to technological change using personnel records from several large employers. The final chapter returns to the idea of how one chooses one's vocation, and looks at the evolution of occupational aspirations throughout childhood and early adulthood. This chapter theorizes the formation and evolution of class identity, seeking to identify critical periods for upward mobility.
My dissertation will be in in three parts, all centered on the role of work in producing inequalities. The first chapter looks at the inheritance of occupations intergenerationally, expanding current class-based categorical understandings of occupational inheritance to one that is gradational and multi-dimensional. The second examines organizational variability in work arrangements as they respond to technological change using personnel records from several large employers. The final chapter returns to the idea of how one chooses one's vocation, and looks at the evolution of occupational aspirations throughout childhood and early adulthood. This chapter theorizes the formation and evolution of class identity, seeking to identify critical periods for upward mobility.