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 joined the CUNY faculty in 1994 and is currently professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center. From 2006 to 2016, she served as director of LIS (formerly the Luxembourg Income Study), a cross‐national data archive and research center located in Luxembourg. Since 2016, she has served as director of the Graduate Center’s Stone Center on Socio‐Economic Inequality, and 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, poverty, income inequality, or wealth concentration. She is the coauthor or coeditor 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 served as a guest editor for several journal issues, including a double issue of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis focused on work-family reconciliation policies (2006‐2007), and “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).
Her research has been published 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 also regularly presents her work in popular venues, including The American Prospect, Dissent, and Challenge Magazine.
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 the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from Stockholm University and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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.
- Stone Center Scholars Present Work at III/LIS Economic Inequality ConferenceFifteen researchers associated with the GC CUNY Stone Center, including three senior scholars, attended the 2nd III/LIS Comparative Economic Inequality Conference, held in Luxembourg on February 27 and 28.
- The Stone Center Announces Its Seventh Cohort of Postdoctoral ScholarsA seventh cohort of postdoctoral scholars will join the Stone Center for two-year appointments that begin in August 2025: Naomi Crowther, who was selected for the position that focuses on wealth inequality; and Marai Hayes, who was selected for the position that broadly focuses on socio-economic inequalities.
- 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.
- 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.