Sarah Halpern-MeekinVaughan Bascom Professor of Women, Family and Community | Professor of Human Development & Family Studies

I am a sociologist who uses qualitative and quantitative methods to study romantic relationships and low-income families’ finances, as well as government policies directed at both of these areas.

My current research includes longitudinally following how mothers who are low income when their child is born experience a program that provides them with monthly unconditional cash gifts; understanding the lives of prime-age men who are out of the labor force (neither working nor seeking a formal job); and studying the role of relationship churning — on-again/off-again relationships — in the lives of parents and their children.

Selected Publications

Halpern-Meekin, S. (2020). Social Poverty and Relational Resources. Contexts, 19(2), 40-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504220920195

Turney, K., & Halpern-Meekin, S. (2020). Parental Relationship Churning and Adolescent Well-Being: Examining Instability Within Families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 82(3), 965-980. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12665

Halpern-Meekin, S., Costanzo, M., Ehrenthal, D., & Rhoades, G. (2019). Intimate Partner Violence Screening in the Prenatal Period: Variation by State, Insurance, and Patient Characteristics. Maternal and Child Health Review, 23(6), 756–767. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-018-2692-x

Tach, L., Halpern-Meekin, S., Edin, K., & Amorim, M. (2019). “As Good as Money in the Bank”: Building a Personal Safety Net with the Earned Income Tax Credit. Social Problems, 66(2), 274-293. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spy001

Halpern-Meekin, S., & Turney, K. (2018). Relationship Churning and Desistance From Intimate Abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(11-12), 5685–5708. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260518807214

For a full list of publications, see Halpern-Meekin’s CV.

Featured Media

• 1050 Bascom, Poverty and the pandemic with Prof. Sarah Halpern-Meekin,
• The New York Times, A gloomy prediction on how much poverty could rise
• Poverty Research & Policy Podcast, UW–Madison Institute for Research on Poverty, Sarah Halpern-Meekin on “social poverty”
• Channel 3000, The rise of the only child: What’s behind the rising number of single-child families
• Wisconsin Public Radio, How social ties affect poverty

See Also

• Op-ed
  • The Cap Times, The crisis to come: Poverty after the pandemic