Dr. Shannon Cavanagh

Biography

Shannon Cavanagh is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and a Faculty Research Associate at the Population Research Center. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003 and began her faculty position in the Sociology department at UT in 2006. As a family demographer with NICHD-funded postdoctoral training in human development, her research focuses on the ways American families change over time and how these changes contribute to increasing levels of social inequality. Her primary research areas include children’s experiences of parental partner instability and the transition to adulthood amidst social change. Cavanagh's work aims to understand family instability and its impact on children's movement across family structures, child care arrangements, and how these experiences shape young people's health, academic performance, and relationship-building behaviors early in life. Additionally, she investigates how macro-level events, such as the Great Recession and COVID-19, affect young adults during their transition into adulthood, particularly regarding union formation and reproductive lives.

Research Interests

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