The Center for Social Demography and Ethnography (CSDE), directed by Dr. Phil Morgan, focuses on union formation, marriage, fertility, migration, and family and gender change.

The Center embraces mixed-method research designs that imbed surveys and ethnography into a single research enterprise. The work of Linda Burton and colleagues, and Emilio Parrado, Chenoa Flippen, and colleagues typify this mixed method approach.

One of the projects under CSDE, directed by Dr. Linda Burton, focuses on two ethnographic projects, the Welfare, Children, and Families: A 3-City Study Ethnography and the Family Life Project Ethnography. Both studies seek to deeply understand the lives of America’s poorest families and to inform public policy on health and health care access; public assistance programs; education and work; family economies; child development; parenting; marriage; housing; and community resources.

Dr. Emilio Parrado, in collaboration with Dr. Chenoa Flippen, directs the project Gender, Migration, and HIV Risks among Hispanics:  A Tri-National Study. This project examines the interaction between social and cultural context and HIV risks among Durham migrant Hispanics.