Department of Sociology

My research interests are in gender, work, family, occupations, and organizations. My major line of research investigates how the trend toward long work hours reinforces gender inequality and what organizational and institutional policies and conditions help to change this trend. My other research investigates relationships between parenthood and the gender wage gap, the sources of occupational variation in the gender pay gap, ways in which anti-discrimination lawsuits can improve workplace diversity, the role of stereotypes for the labor market outcomes of Asian-origin individuals in the U.S., and how the pandemic has changed employees’ and employers’ perspectives on work.

Selected Publications

Cha, Youngjoo and Rebecca K. Grady. 2024. “Overwork and the Use of Paid Leave and Flexible Work Policies in the U.S. Workplaces.” Social Science Research 121:103006. [link]

Cha, Youngjoo, Kim A. Weeden, and Landon Schnabel. 2023. “Is the Gender Wage Gap Really a Family Wage Gap in Disguise?” American Sociological Review 88(6):972-1001. [link]

Cha, Youngjoo and Seung-kyung Kim. 2023. “Gender Divide, Time Divide: Gender, Work and Family in South Korea.” Journal of Korean Studies. 28(2):207-227. [link] 

Hirsh, C. Elizabeth, and Youngjoo Cha. 2018. “For Law and Markets: Discrimination Lawsuits, Market Performance, and Managerial Diversity.” American Journal of Sociology 123(4):1117-1160. [link]

Cha, Youngjoo and Kim A. Weeden. 2014. “Overwork and the Slow Convergence in the Gender Gap in Wages.” American Sociological Review 79(3):457-484. [link]

Cha, Youngjoo. 2014. “Job Mobility and the Great Recession: Wage Consequences by Gender and Parenthood.” Sociological Science 1:159-177. [link]

Cha, Youngjoo. 2013. “Overwork and the Persistence of Gender Segregation in Occupations.” Gender & Society 27(2):158-184. [link]

Cha, Youngjoo. 2010. “Reinforcing Separate Spheres: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on Men’s and Women’s Employment in Dual-Earner Households.” American Sociological Review 75(2):303-329. [link]

Research in Progress

Cha Youngjoo, Kristin Kelley, and C. Elizabeth Hirsh. “Can We Change the Overwork Culture? The Role of Flexible Work Policies and Their Implementation.’”

Cha, Youngjoo, Dongeun Shin, Kiho Sung, and Stephen Benard. "Technically Competent but Less Socially Skilled? Occupational Skills Associated with Asian Stereotypes and Wages of Asian-Origin Workers in the United States."

Cha, Youngjoo and Kaitlin Johnson. “Why Is the Gender Wage Gaps Larger in Some Occupations than Others? Work Hours, Task Flexibility, and the Gender Wage Gap Across Occupations.”

Cha, Youngjoo, Lena Hipp, and Soocheol Cho. “Competing Devotions in the Post-Pandemic Economy: The Effect of Remote Working on Perceptions of Employees as “Good Workers” and “Good Parents” in Germany, South Korea, and the United States.” (First two authors contributed equally.)

Cha, Youngjoo and Ekaterina Baldina. “Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed How We Define ‘Ideal Workers’?”

Jennifer J. Lee, Kristin Kelley, Cassie Mead, and Youngjoo Cha. “‘It’s just my personality.’ How employees understand why they work long work hours in a supportive workplace.”