E-mail: Matissa.Hollister@Dartmouth.edu
Assistant Professor, Sociology
Sociology Department
6104 Silsby Hall - Room 104
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-3524
Harvard University, Ph.D., 2006
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.C.P., 1998
Haverford College, B.A., 1994
Curriculum Vitae (PDF format requires free Acrobat Reader)
About Me
I am broadly interested in patterns of employment and inequality in the United States. In recent years my research has focused on broad changes in employment patterns in the United States since the 1970s, in particular the growth in employment instability. While it seems obvious to most Americans that workers are changing employers and careers more frequently than in the past, empirical evidence of this trend has been surprisingly weak. My research identifies several sources of these weak results and demonstrates that the growth in employment instability is stronger than the original empirical studies suggested. For instance, in one study (with Kristin Smith) we explore the puzzling fact that the average length of time workers have been with their employers has declined for men but increased for women. We show that the increase for women is driven by married mothers and argue that this pattern reflects changing behaviors of women around childbirth rather than new opportunities in the labor market. In a second study, I look at the question of how it could be that firms say they are trimming their managerial staff and yet the total number of managers has increased. I show that this paradox can be explained by the fact that while large firms have cut managerial levels, small firms have expanded their managerial ranks. Future work will explore the causes of these trends and their consequences for outcomes such as wages, inequality, and employment diversity.
Courses Taught At Dartmouth
Selected Publications
Current Projects
Research and Teaching Interests
