Julia Behrman
Associate Professor of Sociology
PhD, Sociology, New York University, 2017
Julia Behrman is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, where she holds an AT&T Research Professorship. A sociologist and demographer, her research examines the causes and consequences of family change in a global perspective. She investigates how events, experiences, and policies shape power dynamics within families, particularly around childbearing and reproductive wellbeing. While her earlier work focused on high-fertility contexts, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, her recent research addresses low-fertility settings in Europe and the United States.
Behrman’s work has appeared in leading sociology and demography journals and has been widely cited (over 5,400 citations; h-index 32). Her research has earned multiple awards from the American Sociological Association (Education, Population, and Development sections), the Population Association of America, the Sociologists’ AIDS Network, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences, and the South African Medical Research Council, among others. Behrman received her Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University and was a Postdoctoral Prize Fellow in Sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, prior to starting at Northwestern.
Current Research
Understanding Low Fertility. High income countries around the world are increasingly characterized by low fertility, a trend that has attracted sustained scholarly and policy attention due to the economic and demographic consequences of declining birthrates and aging populations. The causes of fertility decline are hotly debated, with some theories suggesting that declining fertility is linked to persistent economic uncertainty and others highlighting the role of changing social norms about the importance of childbearing. One line of Behrman’s research advances these debates by extending the concept of deinstitutionalization—originally developed to explain changes in marriage—to the domain of childbearing. In doing so, it offers an approach for exploring the fertility decline that foregrounds shifting social norms about childbearing rather than solely economic constraints. As a case study, Behrman focuses on the U.S.—where low fertility is a relatively recent phenomenon—while also conducting comparative analyses with European Countries which has a longer history of low fertility. Using novel survey experiments, household survey data and qualitative interview data, Behrman explores whether the norm to have children has become deinstitutionalized, by which she means optional, flexible, and circumstantially contingent. The goal of this body of research is to advance theoretical debates about the causes of low fertility and to provide new empirical insights into how childbearing norms can be more effectively measured.
Inequalities in schooling and climate shocks. Another future stream of research incorporates Behrman's interests in mass schooling and environment to advance conceptual and empirical understandings of the linkages between climatic shocks and inequalities in schooling in sub-Saharan Africa. With collaborator Liliana Andriano, Behrman is in the progress of combining climatic data with geo-referenced cross-sectional and panel data on school attendance and learning from 174 surveys from 25 sub-Saharan countries collected since 1990. This project will make crucial contributions to research and policy understandings of the linkages between climatic shocks and educational stratification in a context of educational expansion and climate change.
Selected Publications
Behrman, J., E. Marshall, and F. Keusch. 2025. An experimental approach to assessing young women’s childbearing preferences: A research note on the United States. Demography 62 (3): 773–85.
Weitzman, A., J. Behrman, and M. Ascherio. 2025. Quantitative data availability and measurement of US immigrant and immigration policies: IMR methods note. International Migration Review 59(2): 929–48.
Mark, N., A. Weitzman, and J. Behrman. 2024. Fear among Hispanic and non-Hispanic White youth in Texas during a period of punitive immigration policies (2009–2017). Socius Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 10.
Behrman, J. 2024. Ideal family size and reproductive orientations: An exploration of change over time in the United States. Demography 61(5): 1535–57.
Behrman, J. and A. Weitzman. 2024. State‐level immigrant policies and ideal family size in the United States. Population and Development Review 50 (2): 375–401.
Behrman, J. 2023. A brief report on the COVID‐19 pandemic and ideal family size in the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family 85 (2): 645–56.
Okai, E. and J. Behrman. 2022. Identificational orientations among three generations of migrants in France. Social Forces 102(1): 63–91.
Behrman, J. and A. Weitzman. 2022. Point of reference: A multi-sited exploration of African migration and fertility in France. International Migration Review 56(3): 911–40.
Behrman, J., M. Eilers, I. McLoughlin-Brooks, and A. Weitzman. 2022. International migration and modern contraceptive use: A research note on African migrants to France. Demography 59(1): 27–36.
Andriano, L., J. Behrman, and C. Monden. 2021. Husbands’ dominance in wives’ health decision-making: A diffusion perspective in sub-Saharan Africa. Demography 58(5): 1955–75.
Behrman, J. and M. Frye. 2021. Attitudes toward intimate partner violence in dyadic perspective: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. Demography 58(3): 1143–70.
Kashyap, R. and J. Behrman. 2020. Gender discrimination and excess female under-five mortality in India: A new perspective using mixed-sex twins. Demography 57(6): 2143–67.
Gruijters, R. and J. Behrman. 2020. Learning inequality in Francophone Africa: School quality and the educational achievement of rich and poor children. Sociology of Education 93(3): 256–76.
