Dr. Holly Hummer is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on the social mechanisms shaping individuals’ family and work pathways, particularly in our era of low fertility rates. Much of her current work examines women’s childlessness in various postindustrial contexts such as the United States and Japan. She primarily uses qualitative methods, such as in-depth interviews in multiple languages, to capture the complexities inherent in reproductive and employment experiences and decisions.

Dr. Hummer’s current research draws on over 150 in-depth interviews she conducted with women who do not have children (by choice or circumstance) to examine the social experience of being childless in a time where delayed childbearing and not having children are becoming both more common and more contested. Some of this work has been published as solo-authored articles in the Journal of Marriage and Family and Population and Development Review and some is being integrated into a cross-national, comparative book manuscript on women’s childlessness in three countries.

Other research focuses on factors shaping young adults’ employment and family ideals and pathways, including work published in Sociological Forum that illustrates the role of graduate school programs in shaping the careers women see as possible for themselves.

Hummer, Holly. 2024. “COVID-19 and Childlessness among Women in the United States.”
Population and Development Review 50:339-362.

Hummer, Holly. 2024. “Motherhood Myths and Mystiques: How Childless Women Navigate
Cultural Beliefs About Motherhood.” The Journal of Marriage and Family 86(4):1098–
1118.

Hummer, Holly. 2021. “To Follow the Prescribed Pathway? Aspiring Professional Women and
Anticipations of Work-Family Conflict.” Sociological Forum 36(4):1095-1115.