Victor Tan Chen

Graduate Student in Sociology and Social Policy

Biographical Note

Victor Chen uses ethnography and other methods to study inequality. His dissertation examines the worsening position of unskilled, unemployed autoworkers in the American and Canadian labor markets, and applies a crossnational natural-experiment approach to assess the impacts and limitations of social policies in maintaining workers’ well-being and retraining them for careers in an increasingly meritocratic economy.

With Katherine S. Newman he coauthored The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America (Beacon Press, 2007), which was selected by Library Journal as one of the Best Business Books of 2007. He also contributed to the book Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market (Russell Sage Foundation and Harvard University Press, 2006). He has conducted other research on the nonhierarchic organizational structures of protesters at international trade summits.

Victor is the founding editor of In The Fray magazine (http://inthefray.org), an award-winning publication devoted to personal stories on global issues. Previously, he worked as a reporter for Newsday, and his writing has appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, among other publications.

11/16/2011

Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests: Primary: Work and labor markets; poverty and joblessness; social stratification and inequality; health policy; qualitative methods.

Secondary: Comparative social policy; globalization; urban sociology; economic development; social movements.

Previous Degrees: M.A., Harvard University, Sociology

B.A., Harvard College, History and Literature

Teaching Experience
Sociology 96	Community Research Internship	Instructor/Teaching Fellow

Qualifying Paper Title: Global Confederates: From Social Movements to 'Movements of Movements,' the Strange Career of Global Justice Activism

Prospectus Title: Without Merit: Unemployment and the Social Safety Net in a Culture of Meritocracy

Committee: William Julius Wilson, Katherine S. Newman, and Bruce Western

Presentations and Publications

Newman, Katherine S., and Victor Tan Chen. The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.
Chen, Victor Tan, and Katherine S. Newman. “Streetwise Economics.” In Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market, edited by Katherine S. Newman. New York and Cambridge, MA: Russell Sage Foundation and Harvard University Press, 2006.
Chen, Victor Tan, and Katherine S. Newman. “The Missing Class: The Near Poor.” Poverty & Race 16, no. 6 (November/December 2007): 3-8.
Newman, Katherine S., and Victor Tan Chen. “The Crisis of the Near Poor.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 54, no. 6 (2007): B10-11.

Miscellaneous Additional Information

Optional Sections on General Exams: Development

Oral Exam Topic: Fighting Poverty and Inequality in the Global South: When Does Growth Lead to Poverty Reduction and Equity?

Grants Received: Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program, Dissertation Award

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Canada Research Fellowship

Harvard University Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy, Doctoral Fellowship