Robert M. Hauser

Robert M. Hauser, the Vilas Research Professor of Sociology, Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will explore the relationship between the economic and social resources of families and the educational outcomes of their children. As part of the Foundation's social inequality project, the study assesses the overall distribution of completed schooling, key transitions in the schooling process, and the pace at which students pass through the educational system. Hauser will also develop a new multidisciplinary proposal for collecting and analyzing data gleaned from The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), a long-term study of Wisconsin high school students who graduated in 1957. Follow-up data on the project has become a valuable public resource for studies of aging and the life course, family functioning, social stratification, physical and mental well-being, and mortality. Hauser, who has worked on WLS data collection since 1969 and has been the director of the study since 1980, will expand the WLS analysis to focus on intergenerational transfers, health, and retirement.

Working Papers

• Race-Ethnicity, Social Background and Grade Retention
• High School Dropout, Race Ethnicity and Social Background from the 1970s to the 1990s