Director, Stone Center
Professor of Political Science and Sociology
James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Distinguished Chair in Socio-Economic Inequality
CUNY Graduate Center
Janet Gornick attended Harvard University, where she was awarded a B.A. (psychology and social relations, 1980), an M.P.A. (Kennedy School, 1987), and a Ph.D. (political economy and government, 1994). She is currently a professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, CUNY. From September 2006 to August 2016, she served as director of LIS (formerly the Luxembourg Income Study), a cross‐national data archive and research center located in Luxembourg, with a satellite office at The Graduate Center. Since 2016, she has served as director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Socio‐Economic Inequality. She has held the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Distinguished Chair in Socio-Economic Inequality since it was established in 2021. The Stone Center includes the LIS satellite office, known as the US Office of LIS.
Most of her research is comparative and concerns social welfare policies and their impact on gender disparities in the labor market and/or on income inequality. She is the co‐author or co‐editor of four books: Families That Work: Policies for Reconciling Parenthood and Employment (Russell Sage Foundation, 2003), Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor (Verso Press, 2009), Income Inequality: Economic Disparities and the Middle Class in Affluent Countries (Stanford University Press, 2013), and Measuring Distribution and Mobility of Income and Wealth (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
She has published articles on gender inequality, employment, and social policy in many journals, including American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, Social Forces, Socio‐Economic Review, Journal of European Social Policy, European Sociological Review, Social Science Quarterly, Monthly Labor Review, Feminist Economics, Journal of Economic Inequality, and Social Indicators Research.
She served as as a guest editor for “Work‐Family Reconciliation Policies in High‐Employment Economies: Policy Designs and their Consequences,” a special double issue of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis (2006‐2007), and for “Single-Parent Families and Public Policy: Evidence from High-Income Countries”, a volume of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2022). She also regularly presents her work in popular venues, including The American Prospect, Dissent, and Challenge Magazine.
Her research has been generously supported by many sponsors, including the Russell Sage Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), the Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS), the Social Security Administration (SSA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Governors’ Association (NGA), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank.
She serves on several advisory and editorial boards, including for the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ); the Foundation for International Studies on Social Security (FISS); Pathways Magazine; the Washington Center for Equitable Growth (WCEG); The Russell Sage Foundation Journal; the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR); and the Journal of European Social Policy.
Areas of Expertise
Gender and Work
Income Inequality
Social Welfare Policy
Cross-national Comparisons
LIS and LWS Data
Featured Work
Income Inequality: Economic Disparities and the Middle Class in Affluent Countries
Edited by Janet C. Gornick and Markus Jäntti
This state-of-the-art volume presents comparative, empirical research on a topic that has long preoccupied scholars, politicians, and everyday citizens: economic inequality. While income and wealth inequality across all populations is the primary focus, the contributions to this book pay special attention to the middle class, a segment often not addressed in inequality literature.
- Three Graduate Center Ph.D. Students Attend LIS Workshop with Stone Center ScholarshipsThree Graduate Center doctoral students received Stone Center scholarships to attend the recent LIS Introductory Summer Workshop in Luxembourg, a one-week intensive course that introduces researchers to two widely used databases used in comparative studies of income and wealth.
- Stone Center Director Janet Gornick Elected to American Academy of Arts and SciencesJanet Gornick, the director of the Stone Center, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary society and independent research center that seeks to advance the common good.
- Stone Center’s Fourth Cohort of Postdocs to Start Tenure-Track PositionsTina Law and Manuel Schechtl are starting new tenure-track positions this summer after completing their two-year terms at the Graduate Center.
- Stone Center Director and Student Awarded Funding Through New Research CenterJanet Gornick, Sarah K. Bruch of the University of Delaware, and Graduate Center Sociology Ph.D. student Joseph van der Naald, have begun work on a sponsored project funded by Social Security Administration (SSA) through a newly created national research center.
- Child Poverty in America: Investing in Our FutureWhen the enhanced Child Tax Credit of 2021 was not renewed by Congress, millions of American children fell back into poverty. A panel moderated by Carol Jenkins and featuring Regina S. Baker, Kathryn J. Edin, Janet Gornick, and Zachary Parolin discusses what we can and should do now.
- Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold WarBranko Milanovic discusses his latest book, a sweeping and original history that focuses on how six of the most influential economists saw inequality in their time, with Paul Krugman, Clara Mattei, and Donald Robotham.
- Stone Center Director Janet Gornick Awarded Honorary Doctorate by Stockholm UniversityJanet Gornick, the director of the Stone Center and a professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY, was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by Stockholm University in Sweden in recognition for her research on socio-economy inequality.
- The Stone Center Launches the GC Wealth Project, Expanding and Consolidating Research and Data on WealthThe Stone Center announces the launch of the GC Wealth Project website, the result of a multi-year effort aimed at expanding and consolidating access to the most up-to-date research and information on wealth and wealth inequality.
- The Stone Center Welcomes Its Fifth Cohort of Postdoctoral ScholarsMaximilian Longmuir and Meredith Slopen will join the Stone Center as postdoctoral scholars in September 2023.
- Searching for the Roots of U.S. Inequality Exceptionalism: Janet Gornick and Branko MilanovicIn this post, Janet Gornick and Branko Milanovic discuss the results of their study, “In Search of the Roots of American Inequality Exceptionalism: An Analysis Based on Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Data,” an examination of what underlies the high level of income inequality in the U.S.
- Child Poverty in America: Investing in Our FutureWhen the enhanced Child Tax Credit of 2021 was not renewed by Congress, millions of American children fell back into poverty. A panel moderated by Carol Jenkins and featuring Regina S. Baker, Kathryn J. Edin, Janet Gornick, and Zachary Parolin discusses what we can and should do now.
- Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold WarBranko Milanovic discusses his latest book, a sweeping and original history that focuses on how six of the most influential economists saw inequality in their time, with Paul Krugman, Clara Mattei, and Donald Robotham.
- A Comparative Perspective on Policies to Support Single-Parent Families: WebinarA discussion of the latest volume of the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, which focuses on on single-parent families and the best approaches to support them. Janet Gornick, director of the Stone Center, presents an overview of the research.
- Remarks by Janet Gornick at the Launch of the Stone Centre, UCLAn excerpt of introductory remarks by Janet Gornick at the launch of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Centre on Wealth Concentration, Inequality, and the Economy, based at University College London.
- Panel: From Understanding Inequality to Reducing InequalityIn this video, a panel of social scientists, including Janet Gornick and Leslie McCall, discuss ways for researchers to move beyond describing and quantifying the problem of inequality and to focus instead on ways to reduce it.
- Panel: Survival of the City: Edward Glaeser and David Cutler in ConversationIn this video, Edward Glaeser and David Cutler, authors of the new book Survival of the City, discuss how cities are changing in the face of forces intensified by the coronavirus pandemic.
- ‘Six Faces of Globalization’: a Conversation with Anthea Roberts and Nicolas LampPaul Krugman and Branko Milanovic speak with Stone Center Affiliated Scholar Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp about their new book, “Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters. Introduction by Janet Gornick.
- Janet Gornick: Inequality in East & West from Multiple Angles – Part 2Part 1 of Janet Gornick’s plenary at the 17th Annual Conference of the East Asian Social Policy Research Network and the 27th Annual Conference of the Foundation for International Studies on Social Security.
- Janet Gornick: Inequality in East & West from Multiple Angles – Part 1Part 1 of Janet Gornick’s plenary at the 17th Annual Conference of the East Asian Social Policy Research Network and the 27th Annual Conference of the Foundation for International Studies on Social Security.
- CUNY TV: Janet Gornick on Pandemic EconomicsJanet Gornick talks about economics and poverty in a time of COVID-19 on CUNY TV.