Sigrid Luhr
Assistant Professor
Sociology
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Contact
Building & Room:
BSB 4160
Email:
About
About
Sigrid Luhr is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She received her PhD and MA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her BA from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research is broadly concerned with the intersections between gender, work, and family. Much of her research examines the causes and consequences of workplace inequality across various sectors of the economy – from the low-wage service sector to the high-wage tech industry.
Dr. Luhr’s current book project draws on longitudinal in-depth interviews with tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area to understand how inequality is reproduced within the tech industry. The project moves beyond the supply-side explanation of the educational pipeline to examine the role that tech companies play in gender and racial inequality. The project investigates multiple facets of the tech industry, from the language workers use to discuss diversity, to the divergent career trajectories of men and women, to the various ways that women and people of color contort themselves to embody the image of an “ideal tech worker.” This research is supported by a Presidential Research Grant from the Russell Sage Foundation.
In other projects, Dr. Luhr has studied social class differences in financial socialization, how mothers and fathers working in the service industry signal their status as parents at work, how scheduling practices affect the childcare arrangements of parents working low-wage service jobs, and the experiences of middle-income families during the Great Recession.
Dr. Luhr has won recent awards and fellowships from the ASA Family Section, ASA Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section, and the Work Family Researchers Network. Her research has been published in Social Problems, Gender & Society, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Social Service Review, Journal of Family Studies, and is forthcoming in the American Journal of Sociology.
You can find additional updates about Dr. Luhr’s research at her website: www.sigridluhr.com.
Recent Courses Taught
Introduction to Sociology (SOC100)
Departmental Seminar (SOC595)
Gender and Society (SOC224)
Sociology of the Family (SOC445)
Selected Publications
Selected Publications
Sigrid Luhr. (Forthcoming) “Engineering Inequality: Informal Coaching, Glass Walls, and Social Closure in Silicon Valley.” American Journal of Sociology.
Sigrid Luhr. 2023. “‘We’re Better than Most’: Diversity Discourse in the San Francisco Bay Area Tech Industry.” Social Problems.
Sigrid Luhr, Daniel Schneider, and Kristen Harknett. 2022. “Parenting without Predictability: Precarious Schedules, Parental Strain, and Work-Life Conflict.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 8(5): 24-44.
Kristen Harknett, Daniel Schneider, and Sigrid Luhr. 2022. “Who Cares if Parents have Unpredictable Schedules?: The Association between Just-in-Time Work Schedules and Child Care Arrangements.” Social Problems 69(1): 164-183.
Sigrid Luhr. 2020. “Signaling Parenthood: Managing the Motherhood Penalty and Fatherhood Premium in the U.S. Service Sector.” Gender & Society 34(2): 259-283.
Sigrid Luhr. 2018. “How Social Class Shapes Adolescent Financial Socialization: Understanding Differences in the Transition to Adulthood.” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 39(3): 457-473.
Jeanna Parsons Leigh, Anne Gauthier, Roberta Iversen, Sigrid Luhr, and Laura Napolitano. 2018.“Caught In Between: Neoliberal Rhetoric and Middle-income Families in Canada and the United States.” Journal of Family Studies 24(2): 170-186.
Dani Carrillo, Kristen Harknett, Allison Logan, Sigrid Luhr, and Daniel Schneider. 2017.“Instability of Work and Care: How Work Schedules Shape Child-Care Arrangements for Parents Working in the Service Sector.” Social Service Review 91(3): 422-455.