Gender norms lead to disparate expectations in the workplace, at school, and in the household, particularly for mixed-gender couples (i.e., women and men). Women have a more difficult time obtaining a promotion or recognition for their work relative to men and often shoulder the brunt of household labor and childcare unless they ask their partners to help.

This project asks, how do women's and men's gender expectations about young adults extend into the bedroom? Using a national survey experiment of 1,330 people aged 18-59 enrolled in the American Population Panel, I find that women and men purport similar expectations to perform oral sex for young men and women. Despite this similarity, however, gender differences emerge in ways that parallel the gendered expectations in the workplace and the home.

Having children in today's world is expensive and time-consuming, and costs continue to rise each year. Some young adults decide to have fewer children, whether because they start childbearing later in life than they anticipated, the costs for an additional child are unmanageable, or they lack the social and family support needed to raise a child. Others decide to opt out of becoming parents altogether.

In collaboration with Dr. Kathleen Broussard at the University of South Carolina, this project asks adults in the United States about the relative importance of social and economic factors in shaping their fertility preferences, and whether barriers to fertility change fertility ideals. 

We also consider LGBTQ+ adults, who are among the first generation to form their own families from the start, instead of finding a partner after having children in a mixed-gender relationship, using a variety of methods to becoming a parent.

And do sexual and gender minorities benefit more from intimacy? 

This study uses data from the National Couples' Health and Time Use Study, the first nationally representative sample of same-gender and mixed-gender couples in the United States, to understand whether experiences of intimacy, including sexual satisfaction, sexual frequency, and relationship quality, vary by the gender composition of the couple, and whether these processes protect against self-reported daily stress, anxiety, and depression.