U of U Family and Consumer Studies

Nicholas H. Wolfinger

Associate Professor
Adjunct Associate Professor of Sociology
Nick.Wolfinger@fcs.utah.edu


Phone:   Fax:   Office:
801.581.7491   801.581.5156   256 Alfred Emery Building
Ph.D., Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
 
  Click here for complete C.V.
 

Research Interests

 
I am currently involved in four research projects.  With Matthew McKeever (Mount Holyoke College) I am studying trends in the economic well-being of divorced women.  The initial results of this research were published in Social Science Quarterly and Fragile Families and the Marriage Agenda, edited by myself and Lori Kowaleski-Jones.  Mary Ann Mason, Marc Goulden (both at the University of California, Berkeley) and I are studying the effects of children on women’s academic careers.  W. Bradford Wilcox (University of Virginia) and I are investigating the relationship between religious participation, marriage, and well-being.  Finally, Raymond Wolfinger (University of California, Berkeley) and I are examining the effects of family structure on voter turnout.

Much of my previous research examined the intergenerational transmission of divorce--why people from divorced families are likely to end their own marriages.  Articles based on this work have been published in Demography, Journal of Family Issues, Social Forces, and Social Science Research; a book, Understanding the Divorce Cycle, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2005.

Most of my work involves multivariate analysis of data from national sample surveys.  I also use ethnographic methods.
 

Representative Publications

 
In press. "Happily Ever After? Religion, Marital Status, Gender, and Relationship Quality in Urban Families." Social Forces (with W. B. Wilcox).

In press. "Family Structure and Voter Turnout." Social Forces (with R. E. Wolfinger).

In press. "Problems in the Pipeline: Gender, Marriage, and Fertility in the Ivory Tower." The Journal of Higher Education (with M. A. Mason and M. Goulden).

2007. "Then Comes Marriage? Religion and Marriage in Urban America." Social Science Research 36:569-589 (with W. B. Wilcox).

2005. Understanding the Divorce Cycle: The Children of Divorce in Their Own Marriages. Cambridge University Press.

2005. Fragile Families and the Marriage Agenda. Springer (edited, with L. Kowaleski-Jones).
 

Teaching Interests

 
My teaching interests include courses on the family, divorce and remarriage, and research methods.
 

Courses Taught

 
FCS 2400 - Family Relations across the Life Course
FCS 5280 - Divorce & Remarriage
FCS 5962 - Fragile Families
FCS 6110 - Graduate Multivariate Statistics