Find me at: Department of Sociology
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What is the relationship between demography, inequality, space and racial dynamics? How subpopulations reproduce and combine to affect income inequality in the general population? What is the impact of intra-generational mobility and how do individual circumstances affect inequality? What happens to inequality when these circumstances change? My Ph.D. dissertation answers these questions by focusing on the dynamics of poverty and income inequality in the face of rapid demographic changes. In a second line of research I am concerned with the importance of spatial and social contexts. Knowledge, innovations and behaviors that influence fertility decisions spread over space through teaching, learning and imitative processes among people living in areas that are closer to each other. I find that the importance of socioeconomic characteristics depends on their spatial distribution. The fertility level of neighboring regions, in particular, is a strong predictor for local fertility rates, providing evidence that fertility has a multiplier effect mediated by distance. A third topic of interest regards the dynamics of racial boundaries. My current research uses a combination of demographic, historic and statistical methods to understand and measure how racial classification changes under the influence of demographic and cultural factors. Prof. Loveman and I have found that reclassification between Puerto Rican censuses results more from the movement of racial boundaries across individuals (boundary shifting), than from the movement of individuals across racial boundaries (boundary crossing).
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Muniz, J. (Under review) "Spatial Dependence and Heterogeneity in Ten Years of Fertility Decline in Brazil". Loveman, M. and J. Muniz. (2007) "How Puerto Rico Became White: Boundary Dynamics and Inter-Census Racial Reclassification". American Sociological Review 72(6): 915-939. Muniz, J. (2006) A Donde va mi Cerebro? Estudios de Politica y Sociedad 2(3):177-182. Muniz, J. (2003) "As Descontinuidades Demograficas Exercem Efeito Sobre o Mercado de Trabalho das Regioes Metropolitanas? (Are there cohort size effects in the Brazilian metropolitan labor market?) Revista Brasileira de Estudos Populacionais 19(2): 65-98. Haas, F., J. Muniz and J. Lima (2003) "Brazil: Child and Adolescent Domestic Work in Selected Years: From 1992 to 1999: a National Report" Prepared for the International Labor Organization (ILO) as part of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).
©April 2007 by Jeronimo O. Muniz Si hoc signum legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinus alacribus et fructuosis potiri potes! |
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