Sara McLanahan

Who is Sara McLanahan?

Sara McLanahan is an American sociologist.

She is the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of Houston and her PhD in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin, and she previously taught at the University of Wisconsin.

At Princeton, Professor McLanahan is the founding director of the Center for Research on Child Wellbeing and a principal investigator of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. She is editor-in-chief of the journal The Future of Children and serves on the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program. She is a trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation and the W.T. Grant Foundation, a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and, in 2011, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She also has served as president of the Population Association of America.

McLanahan is known for her work on the family as a major institution in the American stratification system. Her early work examined the consequences of divorce and remarriage for parents and children, and her recent work focuses on families formed by unmarried parents. She is interested in the effects of family structure on social inequality and the roles that public policies can play in addressing the needs of families and children.