“I study how labor markets create inequality and what social forces shape people’s economic opportunities.”
Andrew Taeho Kim
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
Using large-scale survey data and quantitative methods, I study how factors such as education, occupation, household work arrangements, and geographic context shape economic inequality.
Much of my work examines racial and ethnic stratification in labor markets, including research on Asian American economic outcomes and differences both between and within racial groups. Other projects examine family labor supply and comparative labor market patterns in the United States and Korea. I ask questions such as why some groups experience economic advantages or disadvantages, and how race, gender, and family arrangements interact to shape economic well-being.
We are moving beyond simple comparisons of average earnings to understand how inequality is structured within groups and across the income distribution. In the case of Asian Americans, for example, average outcomes often appear relatively advantaged, but those averages can hide large differences across ethnic subgroups, immigration histories, and family arrangements.
I am examining both how economic inequality emerges and how it can be measured more accurately. In a recent paper, I showed that inconsistencies in how occupations are coded in survey data have increased over time and can substantially affect estimates of occupational mobility. In another recent article, I examine how race and gender intersect in shaping economic outcomes for women of color. The study shows the “double disadvantage” faced by Black, Hispanic, and Asian American women becomes especially visible when family economic standard of living, rather than individual earnings, is used to evaluate inequality.
Why I Do What I Do
I was drawn to sociology because it connects individual experiences to larger social structures. Questions about work, opportunity, and inequality affect people’s everyday lives, yet they are shaped by institutions such as education systems, labor markets, and immigration patterns.
Labor markets became a natural focus for my work because they sit at the intersection of many of these forces and provide a clear window into how social inequality is produced and reproduced.
Currently Working On
Asian Americans are often viewed as a “model minority” because of their high levels of educational attainment and relatively high average earnings. My forthcoming article “Geography, Coethnic Concentration, and Earnings Disadvantage of Asian American Men” examines whether Asian Americans’ apparent earnings advantage reflects where they live. After accounting for geography, many Asian Americans, particularly those without advanced degrees, actually experience earnings disadvantages relative to Whites. The analysis also shows these disadvantages are larger in local labor markets with higher coethnic concentration.