Jennifer Lundquist
Professor of Sociology / Senior Associate Dean of Research & Faculty Development | University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA, UNITED STATES
Jennifer Lundquist examines the pathways through which racial, ethnic and gender inequalities are perpetuated in institutional settings.
Expertise (4)
Workplace Inequality
Online Dating Behaviors
Race and Ethnicity
Inequality
Biography
Jennifer Lundquist examines the pathways through which racial, ethnic and gender inequalities are perpetuated and sometimes undone in various institutional settings, such as the workplace, the dating/marriage market and in families.
Her major areas of scholarship include analyzing online dating behaviors to better understand how interracial interaction contributes to continued racial hierarchies; taking advantage of unique social continuities in the U.S. military that provide insight into what drives racial disparities in health, family formation behaviors and other outcomes in larger society; and tracing the development and impact on the American welfare system of the U.S. prison and military system “submerged states.” By exploring alternative institutional contexts, she casts a number of important social problems in a new light. Her data collection and methods span from analysis of “big data” scraped from the web, administrative records and surveys to qualitative interview approaches.
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Education (3)
University of Pennsylvania: Joint Ph.D., Sociology & Demography
University of Pennsylvania: A.M., Demography
Washington and Lee University: B.A., Anthropology/Archaeology and Spanish
Links (2)
Select Recent Media Coverage (7)
The Fantasy of a Nonprofit Dating App
The Atlantic online
2025-02-20
Jennifer Lundquist comments in a story exploring the feasibility of a nonprofit dating app. She notes that a government-sponsored dating app would raise many issues, such as how information on people’s romantic and sexual preferences might be used by the government.
Opinion: FTX whistleblower was unusual. Most witnesses are too afraid to speak up.
MarketWatch online
2023-09-23
Research by Jennifer Lindquist is cited in an opinion piece about risks faced by corporate whistleblowers. Berman and Lundquist found that more whistleblowers are women and that women face higher rates of reprisal than male whistleblowers.
Why aren't college-educated Black women meeting their match?
Insider online
2023-02-05
"We have an economic system that creates real inequality, in particular for Black men. And so you have a situation known as the marriage squeeze, where Black women tend to be more highly educated than Black men because of the different ways in which a racist society impacts men versus women," said Jennifer Lundquist, professor of Sociology and Senior Associate Dean of Research & Faculty Development at the University of Massachusetts, and co-author of "The Dating Divide."
Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: How Sexual Racism Affects Online Dating
Comedy Central online
2022-05-31
In a podcast, Jennifer Lundquist discusses digital sexual racism with “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” correspondent Ronny Chieng and comedian Roy Wood Jr.
People are using Tinder to sell insurance policies and looking for love on LinkedIn, in an online world where the boundaries are increasingly blurred
Insider online
2022-04-21
Jennifer Lundquist s quoted in a story about dating apps increasingly being used for purposes other than those intended, such as using LinkedIn to find a date or Tinder to sell insurance.
When Women Blow the Whistle
Society of Women Engineers online
2022-01-11
This idea that women are more focused on the public good than men is common and not without some data supporting it. The United Nations named the global empowerment of women a critical step in reducing corruption and working toward greater equality. Dr. Berman and Dr. Lundquist note several studies that found a greater share of women in elected office results in lower levels of government corruption. Other studies have found that when it comes to business transactions, women are more ethical than men. This may be due to how women are socialized, they note.
Why your swipes on Hinge and OKCupid might be racist
New York Post print
2021-02-19
Jennifer Lundquist is interviewed for an article about “The Dating Divide,” the new book she co-authored, which examines racism in the world of online dating.
Select Publications (3)
Why are so many big tech whistleblowers women? Here is what the research shows
The ConversationFrancine Berman and Jennifer Lundquist
2022-06-06
UMass Amherst faculty Francine Berman and Jennifer Lundquist examine the reasons that many whistleblowers in the technology industry tend to be women.
The Dating Divide: Race and Desire in the Era of Online Romance (BOOK)
University of California PressCeleste Vaughan Curington, Jennifer Hickes Lundquist and Ken-Hou Lin
2021-02-09
The Dating Divide is the first comprehensive look at "digital-sexual racism," a distinct form of racism that is mediated and amplified through the impersonal and anonymous context of online dating.
Does a Criminal Past Predict Worker Performance? Evidence from One of America's Largest Employers
Social ForcesJennifer Lundquist, Elko Strader and Devah Prager
2018-01-30
This paper is one of the first systematic assessments of ex-felons’ workplace performance. Using FOIA-requested data from the Department of Defense, we follow 1.3 million ex-offender and non-offender enlistees in the US military from 2002 to 2009. Those with a felony background show no difference in attrition rates due to poor performance compared to those without criminal records
