Published Research

​I research poverty, inequality, and social policy in the United States and internationally. Click on each topic below for paper descriptions, full papers, and supplementary material/replication packages.

Homelessness

Alongside rising housing costs and economic inequality, the number of people experiencing homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area has rapidly increased in recent years. This increase in homelessness is especially visually apparent with the proliferation of tent encampments. Grounded in years of volunteer and personal experience, my newest research documents the growth of tent encampments in Oakland, California. Triangulating several data sources, I examine how physical features of urban space, neighborhood characteristics, and interventions by the City of Oakland shape the location, size, and stability of tent encampments over the past decade. 

Peer-Reviewed Publication
  • Ryan Finnigan. Forthcoming. "The Growth and Shifting Spatial Distribution of Tent Encampments in Oakland, California." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences​ (pre-print PDF)
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I also conduct research in partnership with local service providers. From 2018 to 2020, I was a volunteer caseworker with a disaster relief organization in Alameda county that supports tent encampment residents who experience fires. I also produced reports analyzing the organization's client data (internal use only). In 2020, I collaborated with Loaves & Fishes in Sacramento to survey 250 of their breakfast and lunch guests face-to-face. We are collaboratively producing a report and other materials for Loaves & Fishes' advocacy program.

The working paper below uses the data collected with Loaves & Fishes to estimate the self-reported impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for people experiencing homelessness in Sacramento. I contextualize these estimates with comparisons to Sacramento's 2019 Point-in-Time Count and Survey of Homelessness and a contemporaneous survey data on low-income housed Californians (from the Household Pulse Survey). I have also published a policy brief mapping reported coronavirus clusters in temporary shelters as of spring 2020. 

Working Paper ​
Policy Brief

Poverty and Hardship

Peer-Reviewed Publications
  • David Brady, Ryan Finnigan, Ulrich Kohler, Joscha Legewie. Forthcoming. “The Inheritance of Race Revisited: Childhood Wealth and Income, and Black-White Disadvantages in Adult Life Chances.” Sociological Science
  • Ryan Finnigan and Kelsey D. Meagher. 2019. “Past Due: Combinations of Housing and Utility Hardship in the United States.” Sociological Perspectives 62(1): 96–119
  • Bill McCarthy, Angela Carter, Mikael Janson, Cecilia Benoit, and Ryan Finnigan. 2018. “Poverty, Material Hardship, and Mental Health among Workers in Three Frontline Service Occupations.” Journal of Poverty 22(4): 334-354
  • David Brady, Ryan Finnigan, and Sabine Huebgen. 2017. “Rethinking the Demographic Risks of Poverty: Prevalences and Penalties in Comparative Perspective.” American Journal of Sociology 123(3):740-786
  • Ryan Finnigan. 2014. “Racial and Ethnic Stratification in the Relationship between Homeownership and Self-Rated Health.” Social Science & Medicine 115:72-81
  • ​David Brady, Regina Baker, and Ryan Finnigan. 2013. “When Unionization Disappears: State-Level Unionization and Working Poverty in the U.S.” American Sociological Review 78(5):872-896

​​Policy Briefs​

Work and Labor Market Inequality

Peer-Reviewed Publications
  • Ryan Finnigan. 2020. “Rainbow-Collar Jobs? Occupational Segregation by Sexual Orientation in the United States.” Socius 6:1-17
  • ​​Ryan Finnigan. 2018. “Varying Weekly Work Hours and Earnings Instability in the Great Recession.” Social Science Research 74: 96-107
  • Ryan Finnigan and Savannah Hunter. 2018. “Occupational Composition and Racial/Ethnic Inequalities in Varying Weekly Work Hours,” pp.165-193 in Research in the Sociology of Work, vol. 32, edited by Ethel Mickey and Adia Harvey Wingfield
  • Ryan Finnigan and Jo Mhairi Hale. 2018. “Working 9 to 5? Union Membership and Work Hours and Schedules.” Social Forces 4(1): 1541–1568​

​Policy Brief

Social Policy and Public Attitudes

Peer-Reviewed Publications
  • Tarik Abou-Chadi and Ryan Finnigan. 2019. “Rights for Same-Sex Couples and Attitudes toward Gays and Lesbians in Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 52(6): 868-895
  • David Brady and Ryan Finnigan. 2014. “Does Immigration Undermine Public Support for Social Policy?” American Sociological Review 79(1):17-42