Most of my published research examines how earnings are shaped by local contexts– regional, political economic, organizational, and workplace. I conceive of context as constitutive of economic action, emphasizing power in social and economic relations as key for understanding inequality. In these studies I use statistical and archival methods designed to clarify sources of change, including multi-level growth curve models and process tracing. This research helps us understand the causes of rising earnings inequality in the United States since the 1970s; how race and gender shape earnings and access to economic security; and the cultural narratives that are used to explain and justify the status quo.
Book
Branch, Enobong Hannah and Caroline Hanley. Work in Black and White: Striving for the American Dream. New York: Russell Sage Foundation (December 2022)
Journal articles and book chapters
Hanley, Caroline and Enobong Hannah Branch. 2025. “Precarious Jobs, Precarious Lives? A Cohort Analysis of Trends in Hourly Employment.” Social Currents 12, 2:129-156.
Hanley, Caroline, Kathryn Howell, and Benjamin Teresa. 2024. “Power in the Court: Legal Argumentation and the Hierarchy of Credibility in Eviction Hearings.” Socius v10.
Hanley, Caroline and Enobong Hannah Branch. 2024. “Essential Workers in the United States: An Intersectional Perspective.” Research in the Sociology of Work (special issue “Essentiality of Work” edited by Rick Delbridge, Markus Helfen, Andi Pekarek, and Gretchen Purser) v.36:109-141.
Hanley, Caroline and Enobong Hannah Branch. 2023. “Insecure Employment Relations in the Post-Civil Rights Period: The Persistence of Racial and Gender Gaps in Hourly Employment.” Issues in Race and Society 11 (Spring):215-258.
Hanley, Caroline. 2021. “Institutionalized Insecurity: Postwar Employment Restructuring and the Symbolic Power of the Local Business Climate” Socio-Economic Review 20, 2 (April):711-732.
Branch, Enobong Hannah and Caroline Hanley. 2017. “A Racial-Gender Lens on Precarious Nonstandard Employment.” Research in the Sociology of Work (special issue “Precarious Work: Causes, Characteristics and Consequences” edited by Arne L. Kalleberg and Steven Vallas) v. 31:183-213.
Saporito, Salvatore and Caroline Hanley. 2014. “The Declining Significance of Race? Local Racial Composition and White Private School Enrollment, 1970 to 2000.” Pp. 64-96 in Annette Lareau and Kimberly Goyette, eds. Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Branch, Enobong Hannah and Caroline Hanley. 2014. “Upgraded to Bad Jobs: Low-Wage Black Women’s Relative Status Since 1970.” The Sociological Quarterly 55, 2: 366-395.
Hanley, Caroline and Michael T. Douglass (former W&M student). 2014. “High Road, Low Road, or Off Road? Economic Development Strategies in the American States.” Economic Development Quarterly 28, 3: 220-229.
Hanley, Caroline. 2014. “Putting the Bias in Skill-Biased Technological Change? Postwar White Collar Automation Technologies at General Electric.” American Behavioral Scientist 58(3):400-415.
Branch, Enobong Hannah and Caroline Hanley 2013. “Interrogating Claims of Progress for Black Women since 1970.” Journal of Black Studies 44, 2 (March): 203-226.
Branch, Enobong Hannah and Caroline Hanley. 2011. “Regional Convergence in Low-Wage Work and Earnings, 1970-2000.” Sociological Perspectives 54, 4: 569-592.
Hanley, Caroline. 2011. “Investigating the Organizational Sources of High-Wage Earnings Growth and Rising Inequality.” Social Science Research 40, 3: 902-916.
Hanley, Caroline. 2010-2011. “A Spatial Perspective on Rising Inequality in the United States.” International Journal of Sociology 40, 4 (Winter): 6-30.
Hanley, Caroline. 2010. “Earnings Inequality and Subnational Political Economy in the United States, 1970-2000.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 28: 251-273.