Cook-Gray Lecture Set for Sept. 29
Francine Blau, the ILR School’s Frances Perkins Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and a Cornell professor of economics, is the 2023 Alice Cook/Lois Gray Distinguished Lecture speaker.
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A leading center of scholarship on inequality
About Us
Inequality lies at the heart of current debates about opportunity and equity, implicating numerous contemporary policy issues. Public and scholarly interest in inequality has intensified, not merely because of historic increases in income and wealth disparity in the United States and other advanced industrial countries, but also because inequalities of race, ethnicity, gender, and social class are evolving in dramatic and complicated ways. Cornell University is a leading center of scholarship on inequality, drawing strength from its many departments and college
Director's Statement
Cornell University’s Center for the Study of Inequality (CSI) is devoted to understanding patterns, causes, and consequences of social and economic inequality. CSI fosters new and cutting-edge research, trains undergraduate and graduate students, encourages the exchange of ideas among inequality researchers, and disseminates research findings to a broader public. It supports research and knowledge that is evidence-based and systematic, whether it is “basic” research that develops formal models of the social processes that underpin inequality or “applied” research that assesses the intended or unintended consequences of policies that affect equality of opportunity.
CSI is based in the Sociology Department in the College of Arts and Sciences, but has more than 100 Faculty Affiliates from around campus. Faculty affiliates study a diverse range of topics, including:
- labor market processes and earnings inequality
- educational attainment and school-to-work transitions
- poverty and homelessness
- intergenerational mobility and equality of opportunity
- residential segregation, neighborhoods, and urban poverty
- racial and ethnic inequality, immigration
- changing family forms and its impact on child development
What is CSI?
Popular Destinations
Pursue the Minor that makes a Major difference
Click here to learn more about the minor in Inequality Studies, including our new Health Equity Track.
CSI News
New book documents lives of unaccompanied minors
For six years, Klarman Fellow Chaira Galli helped youths from Central America navigate the United States’ labyrinthine asylum process while doing an ethnographic study.
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Women want to work, despite workforce precarity
Despite persistent gaps in workforce participation, when it comes to wanting to work, the gender gap has all but disappeared over the last 45 years, according to Cornell sociologist Landon Schnabel.
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A&S sophomore earns spot in summer program in D.C.
Mar’Quon Frederick, a government major, will spend the summers of 2022 and 2023 in the Institute for Responsible Citizenship's Washington Program.
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More than $12M donated to support students in 24 hours
On Cornell’s eighth Giving Day, held March 16, 15,905 alumni, students, faculty, staff, parents and friends from more than 80 countries made gifts totaling a record-breaking $12,268,629.
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Support Arts & Sciences on Giving Day March 16
Gifts allow the College to fulfill its mission: preparing students to do the greatest good in the world.
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E.P.A’s new air, water protections for poor sends mixed signals, says prof.
Prof. Jerel Ezell comments on the EPA's announcement of new air and water monitoring and enforcement.
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Alumni gift to A&S supports doctoral students in the humanities
A $5 million alumni gift will help to support doctoral students in humanities fields within the College of Arts & Sciences.
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