Yue Qian

University of British Columbia | UBC · Department of Sociology

Despite high labor force participation, women remain underrepresented in leadership at every level. In this study, we examine whether women and men who show early academic achievement during their adolescence—and arguably signs of future leadership potential—have similar or different pathways to later leadership positions in the workplace. We also...

The extent to which people’s social status is associated with their parents’ status has far-reaching implications for the openness of and stratification in society. Whereas most research focused on the father-child association in advanced economies, less is known about the role mothers play in intergenerational mobility, particularly in a global co...

The internet and digital technologies have penetrated all domains of people's lives, and family life is no exception. Despite being a characterizing feature of contemporary family change, the digitalization of family life has yet to be systematically theorized. Against this backdrop, this article develops a multilevel conceptual framework for under...

Objective: This study examines, for the first time in Canada, the relationship between how different-sex couples meet and assortative mating on education, race, nativity, and age. Background: Extending research on how the likelihood of heterogamy differed between offline and online dating, this study disentangles the implications of institutional...

Objective This study examines the re‐employment prospects and short‐term career consequences for mothers and fathers who lost their jobs during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Background The pandemic recession has been dubbed a “shecession,” but few studies have explored whether mothers paid a higher or lower price upon labor market re‐entry than fathers....

During the COVID-19 pandemic, China implemented the “zero COVID-19” policy (enforcing mass testing, quarantine, lockdowns, etc.) for about three years to minimize infections. However, the longitudinal evidence on the mental health impact of COVID-19 containment policies in the Chinese context is limited. Drawing on six waves of national panel data...

Rapid technological change is touching families in Canada in profound ways. The deepening of digital reach has wide-ranging implications for family life and policy in Canada, and has spurred public discussions about the benefits, perils, and need for regulation of digital technologies. This Issue Brief provides an overview of key issues surrounding...

With rapid digitalization, people increasingly use information and communication technologies (ICTs). Analyzing European Social Survey data across 29 countries, we address an under-researched question: how is the labor of using ICTs for digital communication gendered across the domains of work and family? Using latent profile analysis, we identify...

In this paper, we present findings from four separate studies using different data sources and methods to examine Chinese attitudes toward the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical results consistently indicate a marked and significant decline in Chinese attitudes toward the US between late 2019 and the end of 2022. Using a quasi-...

How do students from Mainland China select Canada for their education? Beyond the customary push-and-pull explanations, we introduce a framework of comparative imaginaries that describes how students' rational strategies are imbued with the imaginaries of their host societies and migration aspirations. Based on longitudinal interviews with 36 Chine...

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a wide range of public health, economic, social, and political shocks, setting in motion life events that reverberated to affect individuals' mental health. Moving beyond a checklist approach, this study drew on individuals' own words to identify both conventional and novel sources of stress during COVID-19 and ex...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching economic and psychological consequences beyond its direct influence on population health. Guided by stress process theory, we theorize a cross-level amplified stress proliferation process. That is, macro-level epidemiological, economic, and policy shocks proliferate into individual-level perceived job inse...

Background The total motherhood wage gap among U.S. college-educated women closed over the past two decades and was eliminated by the early 2010s. It is not clear, however, whether the COVID-19 pandemic reversed these trends.Methods Drawing on nationally representative data from the 2000–2022 Current Population Surveys, this study uses linear regre...

In recent decades, the financial elite have seen their economic resources grow significantly, while the income and wealth of other households have stagnated. The financial elite includes couples who are super-rich (top one percent), rich (the 90th–99th percentile), and upper-middle class (the 80th–89th percentile). Gendered work–family arrangements...

We review the literature to show why South Korea is witnessing a dramatic rise in young adults who opt into childless singlehood. We argue that social change occurred over a compressed amount of time in South Korea. Confucian familism and ideational factors specific to the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) coexist and collide. The demands of Conf...

This is a Research Briefing accompanying the main research article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01545-5 With the world expansion of education, mothers have an increasingly important role in shaping the educational status of their children, particularly for daughters and in contexts with a high prevalence of mothers who are paired w...

Although online dating tools have become increasingly diverse over the decades, little is known about the search strategies of individuals or their choices of using certain dating platforms. Based on interviews with 29 heterosexual, highly-educated daters conducted in Shanghai, we examine their strategies for finding a partner online. Online daters...

In light of the growing racialized immigrant population in Canada and advances in dating technologies, this study examines Chinese immigrants' partner preferences and mate selection processes through the lens of online dating. We draw on in-depth interviews with 31 Chinese immigrants who have used online dating services in Metro Vancouver to search...

In early 2020, a COVID-19 outbreak occurred in Hubei Province of China. Exploiting the geographic concentration of China’s COVID-19 cases in Hubei (the initial epicenter), we compare Hubei and non-Hubei residents to examine the medium-term effect of exposure to the COVID-19 outbreak on mental well-being. We examine flourishing—a comprehensive asses...

Using the 2017–2018 American Time Use Survey, the authors investigate how a comprehensive set of temporal conditions of paid work affects parental child care time, with attention to gender and education. Temporal work conditions include access to leave, inflexible start and end times, short advance notice of work schedules, types of work shifts, an...

Aggregate figures unequivocally depict an increase in anti-Asian sentiment in the United States and other Western countries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is limited understanding of the contexts under which Asians encounter discrimination. The authors examine how coethnic concentration shapes Asians’ experiences of discriminat...

In this article, we describe a gender peak effect that women's relative share in COVID-19 infections increases when there is a sharp increase in cases, and it reaches the highest level during peak times in each wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. We demonstrate this gender peak effect by analyzing detailed, sex-disaggregated Public Health Agency of Cana...

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious public health threat that many countries in the world are facing. While several measures are being taken to minimize the spread of infection, mental health efforts must address psychological challenges due to the pandemic. This commentary reflects on original research from earlier epicenters of COVID-19 and identi...

Prior research has attributed the socio-economic disparity in COVID-19 infections to differences in degrees of exposure or economic resources. This study proposes beliefs about COVID-19 as a potential additional explanation. We conducted a nationally representative US survey with six measures of COVID-19 beliefs. Socio-economic status was measured...

Single people increasingly look for romantic partners online. We use online dating as a lens to understand age preferences for potential partners and their implications for relationship formation and family change in China. Situated in Shanghai, this mixed-methods study employs a complementary design to analyze data from 5,888 dating profiles and 2...

Child marriage, defined as marriage before 18 years of age, has harmful consequences for health and development and is an indicator of gender inequality. We used publicly available data from the 2000 and 2010 censuses to estimate the national and provincial‐level prevalence of child marriage across mainland China. Between 2000 and 2010, the prevale...

Advancing prior research that treated college graduates as a homogeneous group, we investigate heterogeneity in assortative mating patterns across baccalaureate degree fields. As baccalaureate degree fields are related to occupation, an important question remains about whether field-of-study homogamy begets occupational homogamy. We drew on the sch...

China's household registration (hukou) system creates internal migration patterns similar to international patterns. Variations in the stringency of city policies for acquiring local hukou provide a unique opportunity to examine how migration policies affect migrant-native marriage. In this study, we merge a city-level index that measures the overa...

Research on stigma and discrimination during COVID-19 has focused on racism and xenophobia in Western countries. In comparison, little research has considered stigma processes, discrimination, and their public health implications in non-Western contexts. This study draws on quantitative survey data (N = 7,942) and qualitative interview data (N = 50...

Purpose: The spread of the Internet has transformed the dating landscape. Given the increasing popularity of online dating and rising immigration to Canada, this study takes an intersectional lens to examine nativity and gender differentials in heterosexual online dating. Design/methodology/approach: In 2018, a random-digit-dial telephone survey wa...

Interacting with family members and friends from other households is a key part of everyday life and is crucial to people’s mental well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic severely curtailed face-to-face contact between households, particularly for older adults (aged 60 and above), due to their high risk of developing severe illness if infected by COVID-1...

What is already known about this topic?: Attitudes of disapproval toward public health measures led to behaviors that could increase vulnerability to contracting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). What is added by this report?: Chinese citizens rated the necessity of mitigation measures for combating COVID-19 higher than did Americans (4.81 vs...

Job loss can be difficult to navigate for individuals and their families. However, we know very little about the relationship between parental status and job loss. Drawing on rich data from Statistics Canada’s Workplace and Employee Survey, we analyse differences across gender and parental status groups in both risks of job loss and its consequence...

Purpose: This study examines the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents in the United Kingdom as well as social, demographic, and economic variations in the impact. Methods: Nationally representative longitudinal panel data from the Understanding Society COVID-19 survey were analyzed. The analytical sample comprises 886 adoles...

Recent research conducted in Western countries highlights gender ideology as a multidimensional concept. Little, however, is known in East Asia about the patterns and consequences of constellations of gender ideology (i.e. clusters of attitudes towards gender relations in different domains). Using data from 3,541 married respondents in the 2006 Eas...

Objective: Student loan debt has become a growing crisis. Considering that women are more likely than men to take on student loans and more likely to take on larger amounts, we examine whether the effects of student loans on young adults' mental health and substance use differ by gender. Participants: We used the National Longitudinal Survey of Yo...

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly all the aspects of society since it's onset in early 2020. In addition to infecting and taking the lives of millions of global citizens, the pandemic has fundamentally changed family and work patterns. The pandemic and associated mitigation measures have increased the unemployment rates, amplified health ri...

Economic and social disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic have important implications for gender and class inequality. Drawing on Statistics Canada's monthly Labour Force Survey, we document trends in gender gaps in employment and work hours over the pandemic (February-October 2020). Our findings highlight the importance of care provisions for gende...

Going beyond a focus on individual‐level employment outcomes, we investigate couples’ changing work patterns in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Analyzing longitudinal panels of 2,186 couples from the Understanding Society COVID‐19 Survey (UK) and 2,718 couples from the Current Population Survey (US),...

More people now are delaying marriage until after they have entered the labor market. Occupation has therefore become increasingly important in providing opportunities for meeting potential spouses. By bringing the school-to-work linkage literature into assortative mating research, this study illuminates the important roles of field of study and sc...

In this article, we consider how, due to a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes, Asians might face a disproportionate mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing data from the University of Southern California’s Center for Economic and Social Research Understanding Coronavirus in America survey, we report several findings. First, since the...

Wuhan, the original epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak , was under strict lockdown for 76 days. We conducted 30 in-depth interviews to understand Wuhan residents' lived experiences of lockdown life. We found that despite strong emotions initially, Wuhan residents quickly adapted to life under unprecedented lockdown. We identified three pre-existing...

Prior studies of assortative mating have shown that people tend to marry someone of the same educational level, but why individuals value a mate's education and the process of mate selection itself remain a black box in predominantly quantitative studies. With online dating's growing popularity, research needs to examine how online daters navigate...

In China, premarital sexual and reproductive behavior is seldom considered and poorly understood. Increases in premarital pregnancy are thought to not only illuminate a decoupling of marriage and sexual/reproductive behavior but also serve as a key feature of family change in East Asia. This study assesses change across cohorts in the likelihood of...

The influx of immigrants from Asia to the United States (U.S.) has expanded the pool of co-ethnic marriageable partners, strengthened racial identity, and contributed to the decline in interracial marriage with whites among Asian Americans. Yet, retreat from interracial marriage with whites may well vary by immigrant generation, an important factor...

Working life in Canada changed dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Labour Force Survey data, we show that gender employment gaps among parents of young children widened considerably between February and May, 2020 net of differences in job and personal characteristics. Gender gaps grew more for parents of elementary school-aged children...

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed every facet of society. In addition to directly affecting population health, the economic impact of this social shock has begun to be palpable at the individual level. Situated in this context, this research note draws on data collected from Mainland China in March–April, 2020 to examine the individual-level ec...

We investigate whether attitudes about gender in China have changed across birth cohorts. Using data from the 2010–2015 Chinese General Social Survey (N = 34,588), we differentiate two distinct dimensions of beliefs about gender: gender equality in the labor market (public sphere) and gender roles in the family (private sphere). Both men and women...

Those in the top 1% of the U.S. income distribution control the majority of financial resources and political power. This means that a small group of homogenous men likely exercise the majority of corporate and political power associated with economic elites.

Most adults spend almost half their waking hours at work. How people feel during work can have far-reaching consequences for their quality of life. This study traces male and female workers’ affective experiences at work to the gender composition of their occupations. To do this, we draw on nationally representative time diary data on affective exp...

The educational gradient in U.S. mortality has been rising among non-Hispanic whites. A common intuition sees the growing educational divide in marital status and increases in educational homogamy as potential explanations. To empirically assess this possibility, we analyze mortality from 1986 to 2015 using the National Health Interview Survey Link...

[Both authors contributed equally to this work, and their names are listed alphabetically.] Background Family change in China is characterized by increasing divorce rates and a growing number of remarriages, like in many Western countries. Assortative mating is a crucial part of the institution of (re)marriage and it plays a key role in the (re)pr...

About two-fifths of the population in Shanghai, the largest city in China, are migrants. In order to live in Shanghai permanently, many migrants strive to gain Shanghai hukou because of its close connection to easier access to jobs, schools, social welfare, and other opportunities in Shanghai. In this paper, we use newly available data from the 201...

A growing body of research documents the importance of studying households in the top one percent of U.S. income distribution because they control enormous resources. However, little is known about whose income—men’s or women’s—is primarily responsible for pushing households into the one percent and whether women have individual pathways to earning...

With China’s rise in the global economy, more couples participate in financial investing. Using the 2011 China Household Finance Survey, we examined factors influencing stock and fixed-income investments in the cities. Couples with urban residency were more likely to invest than couples without urban residency. Compared to traditional couples with...

China's household registration system (hukou) has created an institutional boundary for the social integration of migrants, but few studies have explored if hukou barriers vary by city. We investigate the value of hukou locality in Shanghai and Shenzhen by comparing their patterns of intermarriage between locals and migrants. We hypothesize that le...

BACKGROUND Immigrant-origin students (i.e., first- and second-generation immigrants) comprise roughly 20% of the US school-age population. Despite growing awareness of a femalefavorable gender gap in educational performance, quantitative research on immigrant educational adaptation rarely considers whether there are differences in the educational a...

The question of how educational assortative mating may transform couples' lives and within-family gender inequality has gained increasing attention. Using 25 waves (1979–2012) of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and longitudinal multilevel dyad models, this study investigated how educational assortative mating shapes income...

Under China’s universal two-child policy, decisions about whether to have a second birth become more dynamic, flexible, and subject to negotiation between the spouses; moreover, how women can maintain their fertility autonomy has far-reaching implications for gender equality. Using valuable, new data from the 2016 Survey of the Fertility Decision-M...

Under China’s universal two-child policy, decisions about whether to have a second birth become more dynamic, flexible, and subject to negotiation between the spouses; moreover, how women can maintain their fertility autonomy has far-reaching implications for gender equality. Using valuable, new data from the 2016 Survey of the Fertility Decision-M...

The gender-gap reversal in education could have far-reaching consequences for marriage and family lives. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and longitudinal multilevel dyad models, this study investigated how educational assortative mating shaped income dynamics in couples over the marital life course. Based on education...

The gender-gap reversal in education could have far-reaching consequences for marriage and family lives in the United States. This study seeks to address the following question: As women increasingly marry men with less education than they have themselves, is the traditional male breadwinner model in marriage challenged? This study takes a life cou...

Immigrant workers are a growing share of the U.S. labor force and are overrepresented in certain occupations. This much is well documented, yet few studies have examined the consequences of this division of labor between foreign-born and native-born workers. This research focuses on one of the consequences of occupational segregation—worker health....

Hukou locality (local vs. nonlocal) is an important source of social inequality in urban China. Residents with Shanghai hukou, for example, have better access to social benefits, jobs, schools, and other opportunities in Shanghai. In this paper, using data from the 2013 Fudan Yangtze River Delta Social Transformation Survey, we evaluate how hukou l...

The reversal of the gender gap in education has reshaped the U.S. marriage market. Drawing on data from the 1980 U.S. Census and the 2008?2012 American Community Surveys, the author used log-linear models to examine gender asymmetry in educational and income assortative mating among newlyweds. Between 1980 and 2008?2012, educational assortative mat...

Scholars have largely overlooked the significance of race and socioeconomicstatus in determining which men traverse gender-boundaries intofemale-dominated, typically devalued, work. Examining the gendercomposition of the jobs that racial minority men occupy provides criticalinsights into mechanisms of broader racial disparities in the labor market–...

Scholars have largely overlooked the significance of race and socioeconomic status in determining which men traverse gender boundaries into female-dominated, typically devalued, work. Examining the gender composition of the jobs that racial minority men occupy provides critical insights into mechanisms of broader racial disparities in the labor mar...

Using data from the 2006 Family Module of the East Asian Social Survey (N=3,096), this article examines associations of marital satisfaction with divisions of housework and gender ideology in four East Asian societies: urban China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Compared with Japanese and Korean married women and men, Chinese and Taiwanese spouses...

Using data from the 2006 Chinese General Social Survey (N = 2,515), we examine the relationship between parental status and subjective well-being among Chinese adults who are in their first marriages. After accounting for background characteristics, parents and childless individuals do not report significantly different feelings of well-being. When...

Objective: Chinese media labels highly educated, urban women who are still single in their late 20s as "leftover ladies". We investigate whether indeed highly educated women are less likely to marry than their less-educated counterparts, and how assortative mating patterns by age and education play a role in singleness. Methods: We use data from th...

Previous studies on subjective well-being primarily focus on individuals’ own characteristics. Pooling data from recent Chinese General Social Surveys (N = 9445), we examine individual happiness among young and middle-aged married people in urban China, by taking into account their spouses’ characteristics. Drawing on the male breadwinner model, we...