Sociology Faculty Directory
Wen Fan
Assistant Professor, Director of Graduate Admissions
Wen Fan
Ph.D.
Contact
McGuinn Hall 408
Telephone: 617-552-6864
Email: wen.fan@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0001-6124-8331
Education
- Ph.D., University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Research Interests
Sociology of Health, Medical Sociology, Life Course, Aging, Work and Family, Gender, Social Demography, Quantitative Methods
Office Hours
Wednesdays 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Department
Biography
Wen Fan is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. She received her Ph.D. in 2015 from the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. She holds a M.S. in Statistics from the Department of Statistics at the University of Minnesota.
Much of Professor Fan’s research examines social determinants of health-related outcomes, with particular attention paid to how these outcomes vary across socioeconomic status, historical moments, and organizational as well as institutional contexts. Her research asks important sociological questions about the micro-level well-being consequences of changes occurring at the macro- or meso-levels. To capture institutional as well as cultural change, she exploits policy and historical shocks, carefully drawing on institutional details and temporal, life course, or geographic variations. This is reflected in her dissertation where the Chinese Cultural Revolution is taken as a natural experiment to better theorize and identify effects of education on health, as well as in other projects where she purposefully seeks exogenous shocks to identify causal effects (e.g., Chinese Famine).
Wen Fan’s peer-reviewed research appears in such journals as American Sociological Review, Social Science Research, Social Science & Medicine, Society and Mental Health, and The Sociological Quarterly.
Publications
Lam, Jack, Kimberly Fox, Wen Fan, Phyllis Moen, Erin Kelly, Leslie Hammer, and Ellen Kossek. 2015. “Manager Characteristics and Employee Job Insecurity around a Merger Announcement: The Role of Status and Crossover.” The Sociological Quarterly 56(3): 558-580.
Fan, Wen, and Phyllis Moen. Forthcoming. “COMMENT: Capturing Linked Lives: A Promising New Method.” Sociological Methodology 45.
Fan, Wen, Jack Lam, Phyllis Moen, Erin Kelly, Rosalind King, and Susan McHale. 2015. “Constrained Choices: Linking Employees’ and Spouses’ Work Conditions to Health Behaviors.” Social Science & Medicine 126: 99-109.
Fan, Wen, and Yue Qian. 2015. “Long-Term Health and Socioeconomic Consequences of Early-Life Exposure to the 1959-1961 Chinese Famine.” Social Science Research 49: 53-69.
Kelly, Erin, Phyllis Moen, J. Michael Oakes, Wen Fan, Cassandra Okechukwu, Kelly D. Davis, Leslie Hammer, Ellen Kossek, Rosalind Berkowitz King, Ginger Hanson, Frank Mierzwa, and Lynne Casper. 2014. “Changing Work and Work-Family Conflict: Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health Network.” American Sociological Review 79(3): 485-516.
Lam, Jack, Wen Fan, and Phyllis Moen. 2014. “Is Insecurity Worse for Well-being in Turbulent Times? Mental Health in Context.” Society and Mental Health 4(1): 55-73. (Featured podcast)
Moen, Phyllis, Wen Fan, and Erin Kelly. 2013. “Team-Level Flexibility, Work-Home Spillover, and Health Behavior.” Social Science & Medicine 84: 69-79.