Jessica Calarco’s research focuses on education, families, and health decision-making. Broadly speaking, she is interested in the structures of power and privilege that maintain socioeconomic, racial, and gender inequalities in these settings, as well as the role that qualitative methods can play in uncovering these mechanisms.
Fox 5 interviewed her about how today’s parents are building new kinds of support systems. Instead of relying on extended family members to help raise children, young parents are often relying on friends, neighbors, and paid caregivers.
The Atlantic featured her research in the article “The Unglamorous Truth about the Average Tradwife.” “The real path to becoming a tradwife is typically through economic precarity,” she says.