Sonalde Desai
University of Maryland
sdesai@umd.edu
I hold appointments as Professor of Sociology at University of Maryland, USA and Senior Fellow at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi, India. Collaborative research between the University of Maryland and NCAER allows me to spend Fall semesters teaching at University of Maryland and Spring and Summers in India, building a program on human development at NCAER. I lead India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a survey of over 41,000 households and is the first nationally representative panel survey in India, designed to offer opportunities to study demographic, social and economic changes in India in an era of rapid social transformation.
My research focuses on the interaction between population and development with particular attention to demography of gender and social inequality and poverty. While much of my work focuses on India, I have also engaged in comparative studies with a particular focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
Desai, Sonalde, Amaresh Dubey, B.L. Joshi, Mitali Sen, Abusaleh Shariff and Reeve Vanneman. 2010. India Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. 234.
Desai, Sonalde and Lester Andrist. 2010. “Gender Scripts and Age at Marriage in India,” Demography. 47(3):667-687.
Desai, Sonalde and Veena Kulkarni. 2008. "Changing Educational Inequalities in India in the Context of Affirmative Action,” Demography, 45(2): 245-270
Desai, Sonalde and Soumya Alva. 1998. “Maternal Education and Child Health: Is there a Strong Causal Relationship?” Demography, 35: 71-81.
Desai, Sonalde. 1992. "Children at Risk: The Role of Family Structure in Latin America and West Africa," Population and Development Review, 18:689-717.
Desai, Sonalde and Linda Waite. 1991. "Women's Employment During Pregnancy and After the First Birth: Occupational Characteristics and Work Commitment." American Sociological Review, 56:551-566.
Desai, Sonalde, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and Robert T. Michael 1989. "Mother or Market? Effects of Maternal Employment on Intellectual Development of Four-Year-Old Children." Demography, 26:545-562.
IUSSP Activities:
Member since 1989.
Co-Chair, Committee on Gender and Population
Member, Committee on Reproductive Health
Other Association Memberships:
Indian Association for the Study of Population
American Sociological Association
Population Association of America
Selected Professional Service:
• Member, Technical Advisory Committee on Household Surveys, Reserve Bank of India.
• Member, Expert Group on Second Employment-Unemployment Survey, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India. 2011.
• Research Advisory Committee, Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi.
• Advisory Panel, Luxembourg Income Study.
• Member, Population Sciences Subcommittee, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, USA.
• Review Panel Member, National Institute of Health, Study Section on Social Sciences and Population Studies, USA.
• Editorial Advisory Board: Demography, Studies in Family Planning, Journal of South Asian Development.