Curriculum Vitae: pdf
I spent the first 25 years of my career at the University of Michigan working on and ultimately directing the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data collection project. Since 1968, the PSID has collected economic, demographic, health, behavior and attainment data from a representative sample of U.S. individuals and the households in which they reside. With these and other data I have studied the economic mobility of the U.S. population, both within and across generations, with a particular focus on low-income families. More specifically, I have investigated the roles families, peers, neighborhoods and public policy play in affecting the life chances of children and adolescents. My research has highlighted the importance of early childhood as a sensitive period for the damaging influences of economic deprivation as well as for the beneficial impacts of policy-induced income increases for working families. The focus of my more recent research has shifted from these environmental influences to the comparative importance of the skills and behaviors developed during childhood. In particular, I have sought to understand the relative importance of early academic skills, cognitive and emotional self-regulation, and health in promoting children’s eventual success in school and the labor market. Currently I am part of a team conducting a random-assignment trial assessing impacts of income supplements on the cognitive development of infants born to poor mothers in four diverse U.S. communities.
I was elected president of the Population Association of America for 2008 and president of the Society for Research in Child Development for 2009-2011. I was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010. In 2013, I was awarded the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. In 2014 I became the Kenneth Boulding Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In 2015, I received the Society for Research in Child Development Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development.
Autobiographical chapter:
“The PSID and me” (pdf) A revised version of this paper was published as: Duncan, G. J. (2002) The PSID and me. In Landmark Studies of the 20th Century in the U.S., ed. Erin Phelps, Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. and Anne Colby, 133-63. New York: Russell Sage.