I am a social demographer who studies patterns, causes, and consequences of the fertility decline in the postindustrial world.  Under this overarching theme, my current research explores three topics:  (1)  Whether and how are the two trends that were initiated by the global financial crisis, labor market uncertainties for youth and quantitative easing and the surge in housing prices, related to the declining fertility rate in many postindustrial countries since the late 2000s?  (2) Do sustained low fertility and population aging retard economic growth?  If so, does the decline in "economic dynamism" (e.g., declining technological innovations and entrepreneurship) mediates the two phenomena?  (3) Is the "left-right political fertility gap" indeed the case, as SOME politicians and right-wing commentators are avidly putting it?

My dissertation, The Normative Foundations of Postindustrial Fertility Variation, explored the sources of variation in fertility levels across advanced societies.  Questions that I addressed in my dissertation include (1) whether and how individuals' views and perceptions towards childbearing are shaped by the normative context that valorizes the desirable roles of men and women (Population and Development Review, European Sociological Review), and (2) how people's gender ideologies and visions of family life have co-evolved in the postindustrial world. 

My previous research projects attempted to explain diverging fertility trends in postindustrial regions of Europe since the 1990s (Population and Development Review) and analyze cross-national trends in college-educated women's educational hypogamy (Demography). 

I teach at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) as an assistant professor of sociology. Before joining HKU, I was a postdoctoral associate in Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University.  I obtained my doctoral degree in sociology at Harvard University.