Population Studies and Training Center

Margot Jackson joined Brown and the PSTC in 2008. Her research interests focus on Social Stratification, Social Demography, Population Health, Life Course, Children and Families. Her work examines life cycle and intergenerational aspects of the relationship between social circumstances and health, with a particular interest in understanding the early life cycle origins of inequality and the role of child health in the production of social inequality.

One current project investigates how poor health in early childhood produces cumulative academic inequality and whether parents' educational behaviors compensate for or reinforce inequalities during the school years. In related work, Jackson is studying how the timing and duration of early health investments—specifically, U.S. childhood nutritional policy—play a role in reducing educational inequality. Finally, Jackson is extending her research to children in immigrant families to examine the emergence of a socioeconomic gradient in health among the second generation.