About

Lynne Casper is a Professor of Sociology at USC Dornsife, with a focus on Family Sociology and Family Demography. Her research areas include work, family, and health; gender, work, and family; family change and variation; social demography; and quantitative methods. She is affiliated as a faculty member with the California Center for Population Research, NICHD Explaining Family Change Research Network, and the Work, Family, and Health Research Network. Casper holds a Ph.D. in Demography and Sociology from Penn State, earned in 1992, and has previously held positions such as Health Scientist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Senior Statistician and Demographer at the U.S. Census Bureau. Her research explores topics such as family structure, intergenerational families, child care, cohabitation, fatherhood, and the well-being of single-mother families, as well as women's life course transitions and demographic change. Casper has contributed to the field through numerous publications, including books, book chapters, and journal articles, and has been recognized with awards for her teaching and mentoring at USC. She has also served in administrative roles, including Director of Graduate Studies and Director of the Southern California Population Research Center.

Research topics

• Economics
• Developmental psychology
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Social psychology
• Demographic economics
• Gender studies
• Medicine
• Law

Selected publications

• Domestic Labour Involvement of Young Taiwanese Couples in Different Partnership and Parenthood Statuses

  SAGE Publications, Inc. eBooks · 2023

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  PublisherDOI

• Occupational characteristics and parents' childcare time

  Journal of Marriage and Family · 2021 · 22 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Social psychology

  Abstract Objective This study examines how occupational resources and demands are associated with parents' childcare time. Background Scholars recognize parental employment as important for understanding parental time use. Yet, given data limitations, we know relatively little about how strain‐based demands (demands that can produce negative psychological states) are associated with parent's time with children. Method Occupational‐level data in the O*NET Database are linked to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) 2011–2019 ( n = 10,274 workday diaries from employed parents in 427 occupations). Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS) is used to examine how occupational resources and demands are associated with parents' time with children and in childcare on workdays. Results Mothers in occupations with greater strain‐based demands—competitive pressure, aggression‐conflict, monotony, and physicality‐hazards—spend less time with their children and less time on physical childcare activities. For fathers, associations are weaker with monotonous jobs also associated with less time with children. Workplace conditions, however, are weakly or even positively associated with parents' time on nonworkdays, suggesting that the daily experience of work affects parents' time use at home. Autonomy, an occupational resource, is positively associated with fathers' time with children and with mothers' time in interactive care. Conclusion Resources and strain‐based demands—measured at the occupational‐level—are associated with parents' time use. The O*NET Database can be linked to the ATUS to better understand families' time use.

  PublisherDOI

• Replication Data for: Occupational Characteristics and Parents' Childcare Time

  Harvard Dataverse · 2021-05-02 · 1 citations

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  Data and syntax files for "Occupational Characteristics and Parents’ Childcare Time" forthcoming at Journal of Marriage and Family.

  PublisherDOI

• Family Demography

  The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology · 2020-10-22

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We begin by reviewing tools and terminology commonly used in family demography. We then examine the sweeping changes in family and household composition and living arrangements over the last 50 years with a focus on the United States, followed by consideration of other industrialized countries. We then discuss the rise of social demography of the family, which looks at the causes and consequences of family change and variation.

  PublisherDOI

• 3 Family Demography

  Handbooks of sociology and social research · 2019-01-01 · 4 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Demographic Factors

  Elsevier eBooks · 2019-09-28

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Marital Status and Mothers’ Time Use: Childcare, Housework, Leisure, and Sleep

  2018-01-17 · 17 citations

  preprintSenior author

  Assumptions that single mothers are “time-poor” compared with married mothers are ubiquitous, but variation in mothers’ time use is less studied than differences between mothers and fathers. We use the 2003-2012 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS) to examine marital status variation in mothers’ time spent in housework, childcare, leisure, and sleep. We find no difference in time spent on childcare between mothers, suggesting that behavioral propensities to engage in childcare are similar for all mothers; children’s needs are immutable. Married mothers do more housework and spend less time sleeping than all other mothers. Never married and cohabiting mothers have significantly more leisure time than married mothers, although this time is mostly spent watching television. Differences in demographic characteristic explain two-thirds of the variance in sedentary leisure time between married and never married mothers. These results provide no support for the time poverty thesis but offer some support for the doing gender perspective.

  PublisherDOI

• Marital Status and Mothers’ Time Use: Childcare, Housework, Leisure, and Sleep

  Demography · 2018-02-01 · 135 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Assumptions that single mothers are "time poor" compared with married mothers are ubiquitous. We tested theorized associations derived from the time poverty thesis and the gender perspective using the 2003-2012 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS). We found marital status differentiated housework, leisure, and sleep time, but did not influence the amount of time that mothers provided childcare. Net of the number of employment hours, married mothers did more housework and slept less than never-married and divorced mothers, counter to expectations of the time poverty thesis. Never-married and cohabiting mothers reported more total and more sedentary leisure time than married mothers. We assessed the influence of demographic differences among mothers to account for variation in their time use by marital status. Compositional differences explained more than two-thirds of the variance in sedentary leisure time between married and never-married mothers, but only one-third of the variance between married and cohabiting mothers. The larger unexplained gap in leisure quality between cohabiting and married mothers is consistent with the gender perspective.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Progress Made, Gaps Remain: Final Observations

  2015-02-17

  book-chapterSenior author

  Dramatic societal changes have reshaped America’s families. Young adults have delayed marriage, and cohabitation before marriage has become commonplace. One in three women giving birth is unmarried, and the proportion of children under 18 living in single-parent families rose from 23 to 31 percent between 1980 and 2000, reflecting increased rates of both nonmarital childbearing and divorce. This authoritative volume offers a blueprint for addressing some of the most important measurement issues in family research, and it points out potential pitfalls for researchers and students who may not be familiar with data quality issues. The Handbook of Measurement Issues in Family Research will appeal to scholars in the departments of psychology, sociology, and population studies, as well as researchers working in governmental agencies.

  PublisherDOI

• Parents’ Daily Time With Their Children: A Workplace Intervention

  PEDIATRICS · 2015-04-14 · 51 citations

  article

  OBJECTIVES: In the context of a group randomized field trial, we evaluated whether parents who participated in a workplace intervention, designed to increase supervisor support for personal and family life and schedule control, reported significantly more daily time with their children at the 12-month follow-up compared with parents assigned to the Usual Practice group. We also tested whether the intervention effect was moderated by parent gender, child gender, or child age. METHODS: The Support-Transform-Achieve-Results Intervention was delivered in an information technology division of a US Fortune 500 company. Participants included 93 parents (45% mothers) of a randomly selected focal child aged 9 to 17 years (49% daughters) who completed daily telephone diaries at baseline and 12 months after intervention. During evening telephone calls on 8 consecutive days, parents reported how much time they spent with their child that day. RESULTS: Parents in the intervention group exhibited a significant increase in parent-child shared time, 39 minutes per day on average, between baseline and the 12-month follow-up. By contrast, parents in the Usual Practice group averaged 24 fewer minutes with their child per day at the 12-month follow-up. Intervention effects were evident for mothers but not for fathers and for daughters but not sons. CONCLUSIONS: The hypothesis that the intervention would improve parents' daily time with their children was supported. Future studies should examine how redesigning work can change the quality of parent-child interactions and activities known to be important for youth health and development.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Rosalind Berkowitz King

  Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

  10 shared

• Suzanne M. Bianchi

  University of California, Los Angeles

  8 shared

• Sandra Florian

  Institut national d'études démographiques

  8 shared

• Kelly D. Davis

  7 shared

• Cassandra A. Okechukwu

  University of Calgary

  6 shared

• Liana C. Sayer

  University of Toronto

  5 shared

• Leslie B. Hammer

  Oregon Health & Science University

  5 shared

• Erin L. Kelly

  IIT@MIT

  5 shared

Awards & honors

• USC or School/Dept Award for Teaching, Mellon Mentoring Awar…
• USC or School/Dept Award for Teaching, General Education Exc…
• Director of Graduate Studies (2013 –)
• Director, Southern California Population Research Center (20…