Doug Massey

Position
Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
Office Phone
Office
239 Wallace Hall
Bio/Description

Doug Massey is Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, with a joint appointment in The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, he is the current president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and is a member of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences and co-editor of the Annual Review of Sociology. Massey’s research focuses on international migration, race and housing, discrimination, education, urban poverty, stratification, and Latin America, especially Mexico. He is the author, most recently, of Brokered Boundaries: Constructing Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times, coauthored with Magaly Sanchez and Published by the Russell Sage Foundation.

Why Is International Migration Increasing And Why Is Residential Segregation So Harmful?

By the late 20th century, every developed country had become an immigrant-receiving society, drawing migrants primarily from the developing world. Return to Aztlan focused on the social mechanisms promoting and sustaining emigration from Mexico to the United States. Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium developed a theoretical synthesis to account for immigration. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Age of Economic Integration used the same theoretical framework to analyze the history of Mexico-U.S. migration, offer a critique of past U.S. policies, and suggest avenues for future reform.

African Americans are uniquely segregated in American cities, and since the publication of American Apartheid, I have been working on the consequences of segregation for African Americans and Latinos of African ancestry. Segregation figured prominently in explanations for black underachievement in the Source of the River, and it interacts with shifts in the U.S. income distribution to yield a rising concentration of poverty that, in turn, intensifies social disorder and violence that undermines the health of African Americans, reduces their life expectancy, and impairs their cognitive development.

Selected Publications

Massey, Douglas S., and Magaly Sánchez R.  2010.  Brokered Boundaries: Creating Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times.  New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Charles, Camille Z., Mary J. Fischer, Margarita A. Mooney, and Douglas S. Massey.  2009.  Taming the River:  Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in Selective Colleges and Universities.  Princeton,, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Massey, Douglas S.  2007.  Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System.  New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Durand, Jorge, and Douglas S. Massey. 2002. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Age of Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.