Devah Pager

Who is Devah Pager?

Devah Pager is an American sociologist best known for her research on racial discrimination in employment and the American criminal justice system. She is currently Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Harvard University.

Pager earned her doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002. Prior to that she received Masters degrees from Stanford University and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. As part of her doctoral dissertation research Pager conducted an experiment in which she enlisted young men to pose as job applicants with similar characteristics. She found that a black applicant received a callback or job offer half as often as an equally qualified white applicant. A black applicant with a clean record got a callback or job offer about as often as a white applicant with a felony conviction. She later replicated the experiment in New York City and found similar results. The dissertation was awarded the "Best Dissertation Prize" by the American Sociological Association and was later published as a series of articles and a book, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration.

Pager's work has been widely featured in the media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and in CNN's documentary Black in America.