Mignon Duffy is CWW Senior Associate; Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Co-Chair of the Carework Network at UMass Lowell.

Mignon C. Duffy

Professor

College
College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Department
Sociology
Phone
978-934-4329
Office
Dugan Hall - 2nd Floor

Expertise

Care work; intersectionality; labor market inequalities; research methods; and social policy.

Education

  • Ph D: Joint Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy, (2004), Brandeis University - Heller School for Social Policy - Waltham, Mass., Dissertation/Thesis Title: "One Hundred Years of Buying Care: Gender, Race, and Market Carework in the Twentieth Century"
  • MA: Social Policy, (2001), Brandeis University - Waltham, Mass.
  • BA: Social Stratification, (1992), Washington University - St. Louis, Mo.

Biosketch

Mignon Duffy's primary research interests center around care work - the work of taking care of others, including children and those who are elderly, ill or disabled. She is particularly interested in how the social organization of care intersects with gender, race, class and other systems of inequality. Her first book, Making Care Count: One Hundred Years of Gender, Race, and Paid Care Work, combines quantitative, historical, and interpretive methods to analyze the emergence and organization of care work occupations in health care, education, child care, and social services. 

She is a co-editor of Caring on the Clock: The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care, which collects cutting edge research across a range of care work occupations. Duffy is also the co-chair of the Carework Network, a national organization of care work researchers and advocates. Her research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Gender & Society and Social Problems. Committed to connecting her research to policy, Duffy has worked in collaboration with policy organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labor Organization, and the World Economic Forum. She loves teaching research methods to sometimes reluctant students, and also enjoys teaching gender, feminist theory, and social policy courses.

Selected Publications

  • 2021 Mignon Duffy, Reagan Baughman and Kristin Smith. "The Flip Side of Turnover: Employment Transitions and Occupational Attachment among Low-Wage Care Workers in the United States." Feminist Economics. 
  • 2020 Mignon Duffy. "Driven by Inequalities: Exploring the Resurgence of Domestic Work in US Cities." Sociological Forum 35(3): 608-627. 
  • 2019 Mignon Duffy and Amy Armenia. 2019. Paid Care Work Around the Globe: A Comparative Analysis of 47 Countries. UN Women Discussion Paper. 2015 Mignon Duffy, Amy Armenia and Clare Stacey (editors). Caring on the Clock: The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care Work. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 
  • 2013 Mignon Duffy, Randy Albelda and Clare Hammonds. "Counting Care Work: The Empirical and Policy Applications of Care Theory." Social Problems 60(2): 145-167.