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Tom VanHeuvelen

@tvanheuvelen.bsky.social

1.2K followers 970 following 200 posts

Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota My blog: https://asocial.substack.com/

asocial.substack.com

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Aug 4

New post at the blog - Affluence Consumption is Decoupling: Couples Inherit Parents’ Earnings from their Husbands: Universal Basic Income Doesn’t Do Anything for Child Development: Building Costs Don’t Drive Housing Prices

asocial.substack.com/p/inequality...

Hope you find it interesting!

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Reposted by Tom VanHeuvelen

David Brady @davebrady72.bsky.social · 7d

The Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management has announced that Zach Parolin @zparolin.bsky.social has won the David Kershaw Award.

www.appam.org/zachary-paro...

Enthusiastic congratulations to my good friend and occasional collaborator Zach!

Zachary Parolin, Wins 25th David N. Kershaw Award - APPAM News - News | APPAM

www.appam.org

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 9d

Bruderl strikes again.

Tamkinat Rauf @tsrauf.bsky.social · 9d

Life satisfaction mostly declines with age. Previous findings (esp. the famous U-shaped age-SWB trajectory) were artifacts of misspecified models. doi.org/10.1093/esr/...

Reposted by Tom VanHeuvelen

Klaus Pforr @klauspforr.bsky.social · 9d

Interesting paper on teacher bias by student SES www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Teacher bias by student SES or measurement error in ability? A cautionary tale for observational studies

Teachers act as judges of academic merit, but unfair evaluations beyond students' true abilities may perpetuate inequality based on socioeconomic stat…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Tom VanHeuvelen

Sam Friedman @samfriedman.bsky.social · 9d

New paper! Led by the brilliant @blaabaek.bsky.social and based on library borrowing data for the entire 🇩🇰 population. Thread below

Ea Blaabæk @blaabaek.bsky.social · 9d

Even in Denmark, cultural tastes are socially stratified. With some quite cool library data we find strong gradients by education and wealth - important as wealth is rarely studied in cultural stratification research

doi.org/10.1093/esr/...
OA: osf.io/ar2xc_v2/dow...
@europeansocreview.bsky.social

How are cultural tastes stratified? Evidence from library borrowing for the entire population of Denmark

Abstract. Research shows that cultural tastes are socially stratified. Yet, most of this research relies on small-sample surveys and includes only a few di

doi.org

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Reposted by Tom VanHeuvelen

Zach Parolin @zparolin.bsky.social · 9d

New WP: We study how minimum wage increases affect poverty and food hardship in the U.S from 1981-2019. Different from recent work, we study the Supplemental Poverty Measure + two measures of food hardship, factor in cost-of-living differences, and more. www.iza.org/publications...

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 14d

Roshan's one of, if not the, best sociologist studying global inequality these days.

Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 14d

Roshan Pandian's new article in Social Forces: how much of recent global inequality decline is due to autocracies fudging their GDP numbers?

academic.oup.com/sf/article/1...

I saw him give a talk on this paper. It is so. cool.

Overstatement of GDP growth in autocracies and the recent decline in global inequality

Abstract. After rising for almost two centuries, global income inequality declined substantially after 2000. While past scholarship on global inequality ha

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Tom VanHeuvelen

Jamila Michener @povertyscholar.bsky.social · 16d

My book w/@profsorelle.bsky.social will be out in January! These ideas have brewed since I interned at Queens Legal Services 20 years ago. The book is for anyone who cares about people, justice, power & democracy. Much more to share more in the coming months!

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Uncivil Democracy

How the civil legal system undermines the political lives of marginalized communities

press.princeton.edu

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 17d

You had a twitter thread awhile ago that showed the householder composition error. It was v clarifying for me. At the time Noah Smith and J Twenge had incorrect articles on the topic. Really appreciate the public work you do on this topic.

Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 17d

It's grim.

Reposted by Tom VanHeuvelen

Jen Heerwig @drjenh.bsky.social · 22d

🚨 We’re HIRING! 🚨
The Department of Sociology at Stony Brook University (SUNY) is seeking two tenure-track Assistant Professors in Global Inequality & Justice (start Fall 2026).

Come join a vibrant, growing department at New York’s top public university!
📍 Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/172669

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 26d

also - my memory is 100% the same. it's like there's just a pile of sand between the ears.

Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 26d

I guess - It's a paper that moves knowledge forward, but that doesn't lean heavily on ed expansion's causal effect on the terms set in recent literature (e.g. no DiD, no search for an exogenous shock), that doesn't feel a need to align with the Causal Mixtape (a great book!)

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 26d

Ha! that’d be quite the bold title.

It is a really fantastic article. I have given it to a few students as a model for using in testing theory.

Reposted by Tom VanHeuvelen

Patrick Präg @ppraeg.bsky.social · 26d

Quite amazed by the articles that @sociologicalsci.bsky.social puts out on a regular basis -- this one here by Lewis Anderson: imaginative, bold, well-informed, an incredible eye for detail, this will really be moving the field forward

doi.org/10.15195/v12...

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · 26d

I wrote about @hermwerf.bsky.social 's excellent ASR article last year on education expansion and intergenerational mobility.

Hope you find it useful!

asocial.substack.com/p/inequality...

Inequality Readers. On the merits

Education expansion merits optimism, and other puns

asocial.substack.com

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Sep 6

I tried uploading my online course's first assignment to Claude and to Gemini. I asked them both to do my assignment.

One said: don't cheat!
The other said: Sure. Here you go.

Which of these AI systems do you think the University of Minnesota has partnered with?

Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Sep 5

cc @davebrady72.bsky.social @jakerosenfeld.bsky.social @zparolin.bsky.social

Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Sep 5

Unionized careers boost up wealth. Very interesting article by Purdue's Alec Rhodes:

academic.oup.com/sf/advance-a....

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Sep 4

Yup. I sort-of-joke that the research and teaching of faculty and grads is just a PR front for the true purpose of UMN: the red tape tangle.

Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Sep 4

Interesting essay in Contemporary Sociology by @stephanieternullo.bsky.social - summarizes several books from the last decade on labor decline's broader social and political consequences.

Somehow her new book was off my radar - not anymore!

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

The Demise of Organized Labor and the Rise of Postindustrial Populism - Stephanie Ternullo, 2025

journals.sagepub.com

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Aug 31

Yeah - I'd never thought of that point, but it's an important one. We're really fortunate to have Natasha in the discipline.

Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Aug 25

At the blog, I wrote about a few recent studies:
1. The US age-wealth curve is going haywire
2. Work from home reduces the motherhood employment gap
3. Unions do more than boost a paycheck

Hope you find it interesting.
asocial.substack.com/p/inequality...

Inequality Readers: What's Old is New

Old versus young! Moms versus work! Unions versus wellbeing!

asocial.substack.com

Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Aug 22

didn't realize you were on the esr editorial board too. esr and rssm have been killing it lately.

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Tom VanHeuvelen @tvanheuvelen.bsky.social · Aug 22

I _really_ liked how you two approached abductive analyses in this paper. I've tried unsuccessfully to use a similar method and logic - but know that there are quite a few rejected VH papers out there building on your approach!

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