I bring sociological research into public conversations to deepen understanding of family, gender, and social justice. As a gender scholar and feminist, I am particularly passionate about using research to empower women and advance gender equality around the world.
October 25, 2019 "Happy Ever After? How Marriage Impacts Our Health and Happiness."
May 24, 2019 "Caregiving and the New Norm." Invited panelist for the 2019 Annual Conference of the College and University Work-Life-Family Association (CUWFA).
May 11, 2019 "One Child Nation." Invited panelist for the post-film discussion at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival.
March 7, 2019 "Limitless: Women's Day Dinner." Invited professor by UBC Arts Undergraduate Society to engage in conversations around navigating academic and professional spaces as women.
April 15, 2018 Yixi talk about gender inequality and changing marriage patterns in the global context (in Chinese). This talk has received over 3 million views since its online release on May 2, 2018. The transcript of this talk was featured on blogs with a wide readership such as “yixiclub (一席),” “The-Intellectual (知识分子),” “banchengdushu (半城),” and “lixiangguo2013 (理想国imaginist).”
October 10, 2017 “What Moves Families?” in the series of Green College Leading Scholars: A Study of Movement—In Three Movements. University of British Columbia.
I am a founding editor and contributor to Ms-Muses (缪斯夫人), a WeChat public account featuring research-based commentary on gender and family. I write and edit articles that bring sociological research into public conversations.
March 22, 2017 in UBC News: How birthplace and education influence marriage choices in China (reprinted by EurekAlert!, the global source for science news, on March 22, 2017 and Phys.org on March 22, 2017)
January 22, 2025 How sexuality conflicts are quietly breaking relationships apart, Mornings With Mani (Sher-E-Punjab AM 600 Radio)
October 1, 2024 British Columbia's declining birth rate, CKNW 980 in Vancouver
February 14, 2024 Online dating in Canada, CBC News Radio Syndication (Halifax - Mainstreet, Toronto - Here and Now, Whitehorse - Airplay, St. John's - On the Go, Winnipeg - Up to Speed, Montreal - Let's Go, Sudbury / Thunder Bay - Up North, Calgary - Homestretch, Quebec City - Breakaway, Saskatchewan - Afternoon Edition, London/Windsor - Afternoon Drive, Northwest Territories - Yellowknife, Vancouver - On the Coast, Edmonton - Radio Active)
February 14, 2024 Online dating in Canada, Omni Television
February 13, 2024 Online dating in Canada, CBC Vancouver (Vancouver / Lower Mainland - The Early Edition, Victoria / Vancouver Island - On the Island, Kamloops and area - Daybreak Kamloops, Kelowna / Southern Interior - Daybreak South, Prince George / Northern Interior - Daybreak North)
August 2, 2021 "Social needs of older adults can't be met by technology alone, says new COVID-19 research," CTV News
February 13, 2021 "How gender and grades in high school affect leadership prospects," City News Winnipeg
February 8, 2021 How gender and grades in high school affected leadership prospects, CBC Syndicated Audio (Vancouver - On the Coast, Quebec City - Breakaway, Ottawa - All in a Day, Sudbury - Up North, Saskatchewan - Afternoon Edition, London/Windsor - Afternoon Drive, Edmonton - Radio Active)
February 4, 2021 "Challenges women face when it comes to advancing in the workplace," Global News
March 6, 2020 Mental health impact of quarantine, CBC News (Associate Producer: Max Collins)
March 6, 2020 Mental health impact of quarantine, City News
February 26, 2018 in EQWNEWS: Study Attributes Gender Gaps to Children
February 26, 2018 in Republic (India’s first independent media tech company): Negative Effects of Two-child Policy In China: Study
February 26, 2018 in Metro News: China’s two-child policy is widening the gender gap: UBC study (interviewed by Melanie Green; reprinted by the Social Justice and Democratization website on March 08, 2018)
March 24, 2017 in Global Times: New study reveals “hukou” as major factor in Shanghai marriages (reprinted by Asia Pacific Daily and ECNS on March 24, 2017 and China Daily on March 27, 2017)
March 22, 2017 in BCIT News: UBC study finds marriage is a little complicated in Shanghai
August 16, 2016 “婚姻包袱”：为什么日本人不结婚？|趋势 (“Marriage package:” Why Japanese people do not get married?)
February 14, 2016 都别争了，选爱我的还是我爱的有科学解释了(A scientific analysis of who you should choose, the one you love or the one who loves you)
July 05, 2015 从张靓颖公布恋情说说为什么求婚不是小事 (Jane Zhang proposed to her boyfriend—here is why women proposing symbolizes a culture shift) [reprinted by lady.163.com (网易女人)]
March 17, 2015 感情里的亲密与距离：男人心才是海底针？(Emotion work in relationships) [reprinted by China Women’s News]
Research explainers in Chinese+
September 12, 2026 婚姻之外，我们还可以怎样相爱与生活？ A brief report of my paper in Population Research, titled “Beyond a marriage-centered framework: Non-marital relationships in international contexts and their implications for Chinese families.”
March 15, 2024 网上找到的对象，是跟我们更相似还是更不同？A brief report of my paper in Journal of Marriage and Family, titled “How couples meet and assortative mating in Canada.”
March 21, 2023 从“拼爹”到“拼妈”：当“教育扩张”撞上“性别革命” A brief report of my paper in Nature Human Behaviour, titled “Gender, education expansion and intergenerational educational mobility around the world.”
April 19, 2022 “我不能接受太大的”：从年龄偏好看中国的两性关系 A brief report of my paper in Chinese Sociological Review, titled “Gendered age preferences for potential partners: A mixed-methods study among online daters in Shanghai.”
October 30, 2021 户口政策会影响谁和谁结婚吗？A brief report of my paper in Population, Space and Place, titled “Migration policies on migrant–native marriage: A multilevel analysis of 43 Chinese cities.”
July 31, 2021 疫情下的工作与家庭：对性别不平等的再审视 A brief report of my paper in Sociology Compass, titled “The gendered pandemic: The implications of COVID-19 for work and family.”
November 21, 2020 当网络相亲遇上985/211：学历在择偶中重要吗？A brief report of my paper in Chinese Journal of Sociology, titled “Mate selection among online daters in Shanghai: Why does education matter?.”
September 17, 2020 从脱口秀大会看职场男性对女同事的恶意 A brief report of my paper in Journal of Happiness Studies, titled “Men and women at work: Occupational gender composition and affective well-being in the United States.”
July 04, 2020 女性向前，男性后退：两性的性别认知差距在扩大吗？A brief report of my paper in The Chinese Review, titled “Separating spheres: Cohort differences in gender attitudes about work and family in China.” This article was reprinted on another Chinese blog “The-Intellectual (知识分子).”
May 12, 2019 外地80后，你们在上海高薪无房吗？A brief report on my paper in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, titled "Hukou, marriage, and access to wealth in Shanghai."
March 21, 2018 全面二孩政策下，中国的性别平等问题何去何从？A brief report of my paper in Chinese Sociological Review, titled “Women’s fertility autonomy in urban China: The role of couple dynamics under the universal two-child policy.” This article was reprinted on other Chinese blogs “The-Intellectual (知识分子)” and “sociologynju (定量群学).”
April 02, 2017 谁跨越了户口障碍与上海人通婚？A brief report of my paper in Chinese Sociological Review, titled “Assortative mating by education and hukou in Shanghai.” This research was also featured in vancoolver (温哥华知道), Sing Tao Daily(星岛日报), 每日头条, and getworld.cn(GET资讯).
April 26, 2016 数据告诉你：大龄单身女青年最后嫁给了谁？A brief report of my paper in Demographic Research, titled “Gender divide in urban China: Singlehood and assortative mating by age and education.”
September 09, 2015 中年健康差，祸起娘胎？A brief report of my paper in Social Science Research, titled “Long-term health and socioeconomic consequences of early-life exposure to the 1959–1961 Chinese famine.”
I was interviewed by ELLe China, as an example of inspirational women in their early 30s, in their March 2018 Issue.
I was interviewed by People (人物), a Chinese monthly magazine of celebrity and human-interest stories, to talk about gender inequality in China. This interview has received about 250,000 views online since December 18, 2017. It was also reprinted by Sina News and the blog “MS-Muses” on May 23, 2018.
I was interviewed by the Department of Sociology at the Ohio State Universityto discuss my COVID-19-related research.
The gender leadership gaps by GPA are stark among parents who were top achievers in high school. Among those who earned a 4.0 GPA, fathers manage over four times the number of supervisees as mothers do (Figure 1). This research highlights the vast under-utilization of women’s talent for organizational leadership.Figure 1: The predicted number of supervisees, by gender and high school GPA, for parents
Online dating and immigrant relationships+
When talking about settlement and integration, we often focus on helping immigrants get a job, but what about their needs for love and companionship? My research shows that immigrant men appear most proactive in adopting online dating (Figure 2a), but they are the least likely to find a long-term partner via online dating (Figure 2b).Figure 2a: The predicted probability of having used online dating in Canada, by gender and nativity statusFigure 2b: The predicted probability of having entered into a long-term relationship via online dating, by gender and nativity status
Gendered age preferences in online dating+
According to a study that analyzes online dating profiles, age preferences are highly gendered. With increases in age, men increasingly prefer partners who are much younger than themselves, whereas women do not show much variation in preferred age gaps between them and their partners (Figure 3).Figure 3: Mean of the desired age gap, by online daters’ gender and age group
Child marriage in Mainland China+
Child marriage, defined as marriage before 18 years of age, is an indicator of gender inequality. In Mainland China, child marriage is more prevalent among women than among men, and the gender gap is widening over time. According to a study that analyzes census data, the gender gap in the prevalence of child marriage in 2010 was greater than that in 2000 in at least 22 of the 31 provinces (Figure 4).Figure 4: Sex difference in provincial prevalence of child marriage
College majors and partner selection+
According to a study that analyzes American Community Survey, college major influences whom you marry. College graduates majoring in law, arts, health, and education are more likely to marry someone with the same major, whereas those in social sciences, humanities/liberal arts, and business are less likely to marry within their own major (Figure 5).Figure 5: Odds of field-of-study homogamy, by field of study
Science beliefs and COVID-19+
According to a study that analyzes nationally representative U.S. data, acceptance of evolution is associated with treating COVID-19 more seriously (Figure 6). Thus, how individuals think about science shapes their understanding of COVID-19.Figure 6: Means of the items and scale that measure COVID-19 beliefs, by acceptance of evolution
Education and premarital pregnancy+
According to a study that analyzes a nationally representative sample of 221,990 Chinese women born between 1960 and 1999, those born in the 1980s and 1990s are more likely than those born in the 1960s and 1970s to experience a pregnancy prior to first marriage (Figure 7). This cohort trend is driven by increases in premarital pregnancy among women with a high school education or less. The less educated women and their college counterparts increasingly diverge in the likelihood of experiencing a premarital pregnancy.Figure 7: Predicted hazards of experiencing a premarital pregnancy, by education and birth cohort
Work schedules and mothers’ child care+
According to a study that analyzes the American Time Use Survey 2017–2018 Leave and Job Flexibilities Module, unstable and irregular scheduling arrangements, such as nonstandard shifts and weekend jobs, widen the educational gap in mothers' developmental child care time (Figure 8). Figure 8: Predicted developmental child care time (minutes/day) for mothers, by maternal education and type of work shift or usual days worked
Housework and marital satisfaction+
How does the gender division of housework shape Taiwanese women's marital satisfaction? It depends on these women's gender ideology. As shown in a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, for the least egalitarian Taiwanese women, relative share of housework was positively associated with marital satisfaction, whereas for the most egalitarian women, their relative share of housework was negatively associated with marital satisfaction (Figure 9). Figure 9: Associations between Taiwanese women’s share of housework and marital satisfaction, by gender ideology
Mothers, fathers, and educational mobility+
What implications of education expansion and changes in the educational pairing patterns of parents are there for intergenerational educational mobility?
Bringing mothers into the picture, a study published in Nature Human Behaviour challenges the idea that increased access to education around the world has allowed more children to achieve educational success irrespective of their parents’ education. With education expansion, father–child associations in educational status have weakened, whereas mother–child associations have strengthened (Figure 10).
In addition, as the proportion of mothers paired with a less-educated father (hypogamy) in society and cohort increases, mother–child associations in educational status strengthen and father–child associations weaken. Conversely, as the proportion of mothers paired with a more-educated father (hypergamy) increases, mother–daughter associations in educational status weaken (Figure 10). The findings on the changing educational pairing patterns of parents underline the importance of considering the gendered context in which education expansion occurs.Figure 10: Predicted parent–child associations in educational status vary with education expansion and
the educational pairing patterns of parents across societies and cohorts
Parents’ re-employment during COVID-19+
The pandemic recession has been dubbed a “shecession.” My research reveals intersectional inequalities in the consequences of job loss during the pandemic as experienced by mothers and fathers of different educational levels. After job loss during the pandemic, fathers of young children had an advantage in finding re-employment over mothers of young children, with this pattern concentrated in parents without a bachelor’s degree. The gender re-employment gap among less-educated parents persisted even after we accounted for a wide set of controls (Figure 11). Figure 11: The predicted probability of re-employment. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. The significance of the father–mother difference is indicated by the p-value on the bottom left of each subgraph. (A) Baseline models without controls. (B) Full models with all controls
Job insecurity and mental health+
The widespread economic downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic led to challenges for still-employed workers as well, creating concerns and uncertainties about their jobs. My research shows that living in states with increased COVID-19 case rates exacerbates the adverse effects of perceived job insecurity on mental health (Figure 12).Figure 12: Average marginal effects of change in job insecurity from “not at all likely” to “not too likely” (left panel) or to “fairly/very likely” (right panel) on change in mental health, by change in state-level COVID-19 case rate
Gendered stress during COVID-19+
My research drew on individuals' own words to identify both conventional and novel sources of stress during COVID-19. Men were more likely to report having experienced no stressful life events or else mention politics as a source of stress. Women, by comparison, were more likely to report the following as stressful—inability to socialize, paid work, care work, health, or the death of loved ones (Figure 13). Importantly, gendered exposure to stressful life events contributed to women's greater depressive symptoms compared to men's.Figure 13: Percentage reporting each type of stressful life events, by gender.
How couples meet in Canada+
My research examines, for the first time in Canada, the relationship between how different-sex couples meet and assortative mating on education, race, nativity, and age. The red bars in Figure 14 indicate that educational heterogamy and nativity heterogamy are higher, but age heterogamy appears lower, in online than offline dating. As for the blue bars, specific channels of offline dating— formal institutions, social ties, and other channels— are distinguished and compared with online dating. Online dating tends to entail higher educational and nativity heterogamy (vs. meeting through formal institutions), higher racial and nativity heterogamy but lower age heterogamy (vs. meeting through social ties), and higher educational heterogamy (vs. meeting through other offline channels).Figure 14: Predicted probability of heterogamy, by how couples met.
Changing gender attitudes in China+
My research analyzes Chinese individuals' responses to the question: “Men should put career first, whereas women should put family first.” Responses range from 1 (completely agree) to 5 (completely disagree), with higher scores indicating more egalitarian gender ideology. Figure 15 shows that women hold more egalitarian gender attitudes than men and the gap in gender attitudes between women and men has widened among younger cohorts. Figure 15: Mean values of gender attitudes, by birth cohort and gender
Chinese attitudes toward the United States+
A study published in the PNAS compiles a series of social surveys conducted in China between 2019 and 2023 to track changes in attitudes toward the United States over time. Figure 16 shows a marked decline in Chinese attitudes toward the U.S. between late 2019 and the end of 2022.Figure 16: Trends in Chinese favorability score toward the United States
Productivity changes and career rewards+
Using a novel survey experiment fielded among 975 U.S. managers, my co-authors and I assessed how a parent's productivity changes (because of childcare issues outside their control) influenced managers' recommendations of future organizational rewards (pay, promotions, etc.) to the parent. We found that managers assigned lower career rewards to workers whose productivity decreased, relative to workers whose productivity increased or stayed constant. Managers, however, more severely penalized mothers, compared to fathers, when their productivity decreased (Figure 17).Figure 17: Predicted career rewards by workers' gender and productivity
