QnAs with Paula England

Abstract

Fifty-five years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the United States preventing discrimination based on sex, gender equality in the workplace remains unattained. After rapid gains in the 1980s and 1990s, progress has slowed considerably and, by some measures, stalled, according to Paula England, chair of the Sociology Department at New York University. In her Inaugural Article (1), England, elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018, examines a panoply of trends and indicators of gender equality in the workforce. England discussed her work with PNAS. Paula England. Image courtesy of New York University Abu Dhabi. > PNAS:You majored in sociology and psychology at Whitman College, Washington before getting your PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago. What piqued your interest in science? > England:As a kid, when you hear the word “science,” you think of the physical sciences. So I didn’t even know that the social sciences are sciences, but of course, they are. I got interested in sociology in high school, mainly out of an interest in doing work that would help disadvantaged communities. I envisioned myself as a social worker working on problems of poverty. > > But when I got to college and studied sociology, I began to think that the social problems that I was interested in trying to solve could be addressed by doing good scientific research on what causes things like discrimination and inequalities by class background, race, and gender. It was with that vision that I applied to doctoral programs in sociology. I got interested in …