Sociology professor honored

Sociology professor honored

University Park, PA. -- Robert Schoen, the Hoffman professor of family sociology and demography at Penn State, recently received the Mindel C. Sheps award in recognition of his contributions to the field of demography.

The Sheps Award is given every two years by the Population Association of America (PAA) and the University of North Carolina School of Public Health to demographers who make significant contributions to population studies. The award is named after the late Mindel Sheps, who was a pioneer in developing mathematical models of conception and birth, as well as for her analyses of fertility.

Schoen was honored for his development of new analytical methods in demography.

His primary research interests involve looking at marriage, divorce, fertility, and related demographic methods and models. The Penn State researcher studies 20th century marriage and divorce behavior in the United States, and has described the earlier advance and later retreat of marriage and the long term rise in divorce. He also has analyzed the "marriage squeeze," the curtailment of marriage when there is an imbalance between the number of marriageable men and women.

The College of the Liberal Arts faculty member is the author and co-author of several books, and has been the principal investigator on numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health. Schoen received his PhD in demography from the University of California, Berkeley.