Contact Information
Urbana, IL 61801
Office Hours
Biography
Sinyee Lu is a PhD candidate from Sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She holds a B.A. in Economics (Jinan University, Guangzhou) and an M.A. in Sociology (Renmin University of China, Beijing). She is the elected Student Representative for the ASA Section on Population (2025-2027) and previously served as the section’s newsletter coordinator (2023–2025). In summer 2025, she was an intern at the United Nations Population Division, contributing to the next edition of World Population Prospects.
Her research examines occupational inequality and the future of work in the United States, with projects on precarious employment, non-standard scheduling and hours, and the rise of remote/hybrid work. She studies downstream consequences for economic stability and hardships, physical health, mental well-being, time use, and social interaction, especially their impacts on socioeconomically disadvantaged subgroups. Empirically, she works with large-scale U.S. surveys (e.g., ACS, CPS, ATUS, PSID, HPS), cross-national surveys (e.g., WVS), censuses, and aggregate data (e.g., SIGI, WID, WDI). Methodologically, she uses longitudinal and panel models, sequence analysis, cohort-component-based demographic estimation and projections, and survey experiments. In collaborative work, she also studies health disparities, (international) migrant integration and assimilation, and family and marriage, both in East Asian and global contexts. Her recent work has been published in Social Science & Medicine – Population Health and Social Indicators Research.
Research Interests
Organizations, Occupations, and Work; Labor Market Inequality; Social Stratification & Mobility; Demograhy; Sociology of Health; Immigrants and Migration; Family & Marriage; Quantitative Methodology.
Education
M.A. in Sociology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States
M.A. in Sociology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
Bachelor in Economics, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
Courses Taught
Instructor of Record for SOC 100: Introduction to Sociology (Online), Fall 2026
Highlighted Publications
Lu, Sinyee Qianyi, and Tim F. Liao. 2026. "Unstable Hours, Unequal Health: Gendered Occupational Health Costs of Work-Hour Volatility in the U.S." SSM - Population Health 35:101949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2026.101949
- Featured by the Illinois News Bureau: “Volatile weekly work hours have adverse effects on health, employment”
Lu, Q. S., and K. Leicht. 2025. “Low-Waged Hourly Employment as a Form of Precarious Work: Racial and Ethnic Disparity and Its Implications.” Social Indicators Research 180(3):1765–1795. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-025-03725-4