Dr. Yue Qian (pronounced Yew-ay Chian) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. Her research examines gender, family and work, and inequality in global contexts, with a particular focus on North America and East Asia. She has published over 60 articles in top-tier journals, including Nature Human Behaviour, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Journal of Marriage and Family. She has delivered over 50 invited talks across North America, Asia, and Europe. Her research has been featured extensively by international media outlets (e.g., CBC, The Globe and Mail, New York Times, The Washington Post). Her work has influenced policy conversations at the United Nations, World Bank, and World Health Organization, among others. Dr. Yue Qian’s contributions were recognized with UBC’s Killam Research Prize, Public Engagement Award, and Dean of Arts Faculty Research Award as well as the Canadian Sociological Association’s Early Investigator Award. In 2023–2004, she was named in the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists.

Dr. Yue Qian is interested in understanding how gender intersects with family, work, and population processes—such as assortative mating (i.e., who marries whom), occupational segregation, and migration—to shape individual well-being and societal inequality.

Her current research focuses on three related areas:

1. Patterns and consequences of assortative mating;
2. Family, work, and gender inequality;
3. The role of family, work, and gender dynamics in shaping health and well-being.

Most recently, she has been collaborating with researchers around the world to examine the social and mental health impacts of COVID-19.

Below is a list of Dr. Yue Qian’s featured peer-reviewed publications. For a full publication list, please see her Google Scholar profile.

1. Patterns and Consequences of Assortative Mating

Qian, Yue and Yang Hu. (2024). “How Couples Meet and Assortative Mating in Canada.” Journal of Marriage and Family.

• Read UBC News coverage of this research
• Read a brief report in Chinese

Hu, Yang and Yue Qian. (2023). “Gender, Education Expansion and Intergenerational Educational Mobility Around the World.” Nature Human Behaviour, 7(4), 583-595.

• Read a research briefing published in Nature Human Behaviour
• Read UBC News coverage of this research
• Read brief reports in English and Chinese
• See Transparent Peer Review for reviewer comments and author responses
• Access a full replication package for this research

Qian, Yue. (2018). “Educational Assortative Mating and Income Dynamics in Couples: A Longitudinal and Dyadic Perspective.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 80(3), 607-621.

Qian, Yue. (2017). “Gender Asymmetry in Educational and Income Assortative Marriage.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 79(2), 318-336.

• Read UBC News coverage of this research
• Read a brief report (I, II) in Chinese
• The 2019 Wiley Prize in Family Science: The Alexis Walker Award

Qian, Yue and Zhenchao Qian. (2017). “Assortative Mating by Education and Hukou in Shanghai.” Chinese Sociological Review, 49(3), 239-262.

• Read The Globe and Mail and UBC News coverage of this research
• Read a brief report in Chinese

2. Family, Work, and Gender Inequality

Qian, Yue and and Yang Hu. (2024). “The Digitalization of Family Life: A Multilevel Conceptual Framework.” Journal of Marriage and Family.

• Read a brief report in Chinese

Qian, Yue*, Rebecca Glauber*, and Jill E. Yavorsky*. (2023). “COVID-19 Job Loss and Re-employment Among Partnered Parents: Gender and Educational Variations.” Journal of Marriage and Family 85(5), 1138-1152. (*co-first authorship)

• Read Jiemian coverage of this research (in Chinese)

Fuller, Sylvia and Yue Qian. (2022). “Parenthood, Gender, and the Risks and Consequences of Job Loss.” Social Forces, 100(4), 1642-1670.

Qian, Yue* and Jill E. Yavorsky*. (2021). “The Under-Utilization of Women’s Talent: Academic Achievement and Future Leadership Positions.” Social Forces, 100(2), 564-598. (*co-first authorship)

• Read NPR’s Marketplace and UBC News coverage of this research
• Read a brief report in English
• Read a personal reflection on the research journey

Qian, Yue and Jiaxing Li^. (2020). “Separating Spheres: Cohort Differences in Gender Attitudes about Work and Family in China.” The China Review, 20(2), 19-51. (^student co-author)

• Read The Economist coverage of this research
• Read a brief report in Chinese

Yavorsky, Jill E., Lisa A. Keister, Yue Qian, and Michael Nau. (2019). “Women in the One Percent: Gender Dynamics in Top Income Positions.” American Sociological Review, 84(1), 54-81.

• Read a brief report in English
• Read The Washington Post coverage of this research
• One of 15 nominees (out of 2,500 published articles reviewed) for the 2020 Rosabeth Moss Kanter International Award for Research Excellence in Work and Family

3. The Role of Family, Work, and Gender Dynamics in Shaping Health and Well-being

Qian, Yue and Wen Fan. (2023). “Student Loans, Mental Health, and Substance Use: A Gender Comparison among US Young Adults.” Journal of American College Health, 71(3), 930-941.

Fan, Wen and Yue Qian. (2019). “Rising Educational Gradients in Mortality Among U.S. Whites: What Are the Roles of Marital Status and Educational Homogamy?” Social Science & Medicine, 235, 112365.

Qian, Yue and Wen Fan. (2019). “Men and Women at Work: Occupational Gender Composition and Affective Well-Being in the United States.” Journal of Happiness Studies, 20(7), 2077–2099.

• Read CBC News coverage of this research
• Listen to discussions about this research in one episode of NPR’s Planet Money podcast
• Read brief reports in English and Chinese

Fan, Wen and Yue Qian. (2017). “Native-Immigrant Occupational Segregation and Worker Health in the United States, 2004–2014.” Social Science & Medicine, 183, 130-141.

Qian, Yue and Liana C. Sayer. (2016). “Division of Labor, Gender Ideology, and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 78(2), 383-400.

• Read a brief report in English

4. Social and Mental Health Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Xie, Yu, Feng Yang, Junming Huang, Yuchen He, Yi Zhou, Yue Qian, Weicheng Cai, and Jie Zhou. (2024). “Declining Chinese Attitudes Toward the United States amid COVID-19.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 121(21), 1-6.

Qian, Yue* and Wen Fan*. (2022). “The Early 2020 COVID-19 Outbreak in China and Subsequent Flourishing: Medium-Term Effects and Intervening Mechanisms.” Society and Mental Health, 13(3), 208-226. (*co-first authorship)

Fan, Wen*, Yue Qian*, and Yongai Jin. (2021). “Stigma, Perceived Discrimination, and Mental Health During China’s COVID-19 Outbreak: A Mixed-Methods Investigation.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 62(4), 562-581. (*co-first authorship)

Qian, Yue* and Yang Hu*. (2021). “Couples’ Changing Work Patterns in the United Kingdom and the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Gender, Work & Organization, 28(S2), 535-553. (*co-first authorship)

Fuller, Sylvia and Yue Qian. (2021). “Covid-19 and The Gender Gap in Employment Among Parents of Young Children in Canada.” Gender & Society, 35(2), 206-217.

Qian, Yue and Amy Hanser. (2021). “How Did Wuhan Residents Cope with a 76-day Lockdown?” Chinese Sociological Review, 53(1), 55-86.

• Read UBC Sociology News coverage of this research
• Read a brief report in Chinese

Whenever possible, Dr. Qian makes her work open access. Below are the links to her publications that readers can access freely online.

Belief in Science and Beliefs about COVID-19: Educational Gradients

Coethnic Concentration and Asians’ Perceived Discrimination across U.S. Counties During COVID-19

Couples’ Changing Work Patterns in the United Kingdom and the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 and Adolescent Mental Health in the United Kingdom

COVID-19 and the Gender Employment Gap among Parents of Young Children

Covid-19 and The Gender Gap in Employment Among Parents of Young Children in Canada

COVID-19, Inter-household Contact and Mental Well-Being Among Older Adults in the US and the UK

COVID-19 Job Loss and Re-employment Among Partnered Parents: Gender and Educational Variations

Declining Chinese attitudes toward the United States amid COVID-19

Differences in Occupational Homogamy by Race, Ethnicity, and National Origin: A Social Mobility Strategy for Asian Americans

Digital Ethnic Enclaves: Mate Preferences and Platform Choices Among Chinese Immigrant Online Daters in Vancouver

Educational and Age Assortative Mating in China: The Importance of Marriage Order

Gender and Educational Variation in How Temporal Dimensions of Paid Work Affect Parental Child Care Time

Gender Differences in Educational Adaptation of Immigrant-origin Youth in the United States

Gender in the One Percent

Gendering digital labor: work and family digital communication across 29 countries

How Couples Meet and Assortative Mating in Canada

How to Find Mr/Miss Right? The Mechanism of Search Among Online Daters in Shanghai

Mate Selection Among Online Daters in Shanghai: Why Does Education Matter?

Pregnant Under Quarantine: Women’s Agency and Access to Medical Care Under Wuhan’s COVID-19 Lockdown

Preplanned Studies: Belief in Science and Attitudes Toward COVID-19: A Demographic Standardization Approach to China–US Comparison, 2020

Stigma, Perceived Discrimination, and Mental Health During China’s COVID-19 Outbreak: A Mixed-Methods Investigation

Stressful Life Events and Depressive Symptoms During COVID-19: A Gender Comparison

The Digitalization of Family Life: A Multilevel Conceptual Framework

The Early 2020 COVID-19 Outbreak in China and Subsequent Flourishing: Medium-Term Effects and Intervening Mechanisms

The Gender Divide in Urban China: Singlehood and Assortative Mating by Age and Education

The Gender Peak Effect: Women Are Most Vulnerable to Infections During COVID-19 Peaks

The Rise of the Childless Single in South Korea

Who Loses Income During the COVID-19 Outbreak? Evidence from China

Women in the One Percent: Gender Dynamics in Top Income Positions

Featured Grants

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid Research Funding Opportunity (2020-2023)
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (2018-2021)
• The Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Research Grant (2020-2023)

Featured Awards

• UBC Killam Research Prize (2023)
• Public Engagement Award, UBC-Vancouver Public Humanities Hub (2023)
• Early Investigator Award, Canadian Sociological Association (2022)
• Alexis Walker Award for the best research in the Family Science discipline, National Council on Family Relations (2019)
• Dean of Arts Faculty Research Award, University of British Columbia (2019)

Dr. Yue Qian works closely with graduate students. In particular, she encourages students to write early and often, and motivates students to become knowledge producers. See below for a list of Dr. Qian’s peer-reviewed publications with student co-authors.

• • Child Marriage in Mainland China
  • Comfortably “Western”: How Chinese International Students Imagine Canada
  • Digital Ethnic Enclaves: Mate Preferences and Platform Choices Among Chinese Immigrant Online Daters in Vancouver
  • Gender, Parenthood, and Employment During COVID-19: An Immigrant-Native Born Comparison in Canada
  • Gendered age preferences for potential partners: a mixed-methods study among online daters in Shanghai
  • How did COVID-19 Containment Policies Influence Depressive Symptoms? Longitudinal Evidence from China
  • Mate selection among online daters in Shanghai: Why does education matter?
  • Separating Spheres: Cohort Differences in Gender Attitudes about Work and Family in China
  • The gendered pandemic: The implications of COVID-19 for work and family

Public Sociology

This section contains a brief summary of Dr. Yue Qian’s engagement with public sociology. For a fuller record, please see her personal website page.

Dr. Yue Qian has a strong commitment to conveying academic research to a wider audience. The goal of her public engagement with research is to increase global awareness regarding issues of family, gender, and social justice among diverse audiences. As a gender scholar and feminist, Dr. Qian is particularly passionate about translating gender research into the empowerment of women and advocacy for gender equality around the world. As a recognition of her outstanding public engagement work, Dr. Qian received the 2023 Public Engagement Award from the UBC-V Public Humanities Hub.

Dr. Qian actively and creatively shares social science research through many channels. For example, she gave a TED-style public talk on changing marriage patterns in the global context. This talk has been viewed over three million times since its online release. You may read its transcript in Chinese or in English.

Dr. Qian has been featured in numerous television, radio, and print interviews. Below is a select list of her media interviews.

• #NoMarriage movement sees South Korean women reject Government pressures to marry and have kids (ABC News)
• Kids share experiences of anti-Asian racism in the pandemic: Expert explains spike in anti-Asian hate (CBC Kids News)
• China must help moms, encourage dads to fix its plunging birth rate, demographers say (CBC News)
• Why this choir is a huge hit with China’s stressed out millennials (CNN)
• Mothers returning to work after COVID-19 lockdowns face lifelong earnings gap (The Globe and Mail)
• In need of a baby boom, China clamps down on vasectomies (The Washington Post)

Dr. Qian has shared her experiences, reflections, and research knowledge through in-depth interviews and personal profiles.

• The Paper (澎湃) featured Dr. Qian for her research on gender, marriage, and family in China.
• The March 2018 Issue of the ELLe China featured Dr. Qian as an example of inspirational women in their early 30s.
• People (人物), a Chinese monthly magazine of celebrity and human-interest stories, featured Dr. Qian for her insights into gender inequality in China.

Dr. Qian has written many op-eds to share her research and expertise with a wide audience.

• Asian guys stereotyped and excluded in online dating
• China’s two-child policy needs to come with child-care help
• Chinese immigrants look to digital Chinatowns to find love online (with student co-author Manlin Cai)
• Does being smart and successful lower your chances of getting married
• Mothers’ education has a powerful role shaping their children’s futures (with Yang Hu)
• Mothers who earned straight A’s in high school manage the same number of employees as fathers who got failing grades (with Jill Yavorsky)
• Online dating: Humour matters more than ‘good looks’ but immigrants struggle with local jokes (with student co-author Siqi Xiao)
• Rethinking the gender division of household labor during wuhan’s coronavirus lockdown
• Social isolation and city shutdown as a response to COVID-19
• The one percent glass ceiling: gender dynamics in top income positions (with Jill Yavorsky and Lisa Keister)
• The pandemic is hurting Canada’s working mothers (with Sylvia Fuller)
• What Is the Three-Child Policy Really Trying to Accomplish? (with Yongai Jin)
• What Wuhan’s frontline medical workers can teach the world about the Covid-19 mental health battle (with student co-author Siqi Xiao)
• Why young people in South Korea are staying single despite efforts to spark dating
• Women feel better when they work with other women

Dr. Qian is the primary founder and editor of, and contributor to a public account “Ms-Muses (缪斯夫人)” on WeChat (China’s largest social media platform). She edits and writes research-based commentaries on gender and family issues. The number of account subscribers has exceeded 60,000 and is still growing. Here is a select list of her popular blog posts (written in Chinese).

• 陈建斌把蒋勤勤气哭了！真的是因为他懒吗？(cleaning as a window into power in couples)
• “婚姻包袱”：为什么日本人不结婚？(“marriage package:” Why Japanese people do not get married?)  
• 和谁结婚这件事，你知道是哪些因素决定的吗? (Searching for a mate: Social and demographic factors that influence who marries whom)
• 都别争了，选爱我的还是我爱的有科学解释了 (A scientific analysis of who you should choose, the one you love or the one who loves you)
• 从张靓颖公布恋情说说为什么求婚不是小事 (Jane Zhang proposed to her boyfriend—here is why women proposing symbolizes a culture shift)
• 感情里的亲密与距离：男人心才是海底针？(Emotion work in relationships)

Dr. Qian has written self-help articles in Chinese to share her academic experiences. These articles help uncover the “hidden curriculum” of academia.

Dr. Qian’s research has influenced policy conversations at the United Nations, World Bank, and World Health Organization, among others.

• After parental leave: Incentives for parents with young children to return to the labour market (European Union)
• All Work and Little Pay: IWPR Survey Shows Worrying Challenges for Working Mothers (Institute for Women’s Policy Research)
• Coronavirus (COVID-19): Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues (Scottish Government)
• Disrupted transitions? Young adults and the COVID-19 pandemic (Economic & Social Research Institute, Ireland)
• Female-Worker Representation Effect: Gender Pay Variation in the Kuwaiti Civil Service (World Bank)
• Flexible working arrangements and gender equality in Europe (European Union)
• How Have Gender Gaps in the Colombian Labor Market Changed during the Economic Recovery? (World Bank)
• Labour protests during the pandemic : The case of hospital and retail workers in 90 countries (International Labour Organization)
• Left behind: inequalities in the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic among adolescents in the WHO European Region (World Health Organization)
• Monitor on Mental Health and Substance Use among Higher Education Students 2023 (Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment)
• Study exploring the social, economic and legal context and trends of telework and the right to disconnect, in the context of digitalisation and the future of work, during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic (European Union)
• Substance use among students in higher education (Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment)
• Uncertain Pathways: How gender shapes the experiences of children on the move (United Nations)
• Working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic: benefits, challenges and considerations for future ways of working (Scottish Government)