Michael Hout (born May 14, 1950) is a Professor of Sociology at New York University. His contributions to sociology include using demographic methods to study social change in inequality, religion, and politics. His current work used the General Social Survey (GSS) to estimate the social standing of occupations introduced into the census classification since 1990. He digitized all occupational information in the GSS (1972–2014) and coded it all to the 2010 standard. Other recent projects used the GSS panel to study Americans' changing perceptions of class, religion, and happiness. In 2006, Mike and Claude Fischer published ''Century of Difference'', a book on twentieth-century social and cultural trends in the United States. Other books include ''Truth about Conservative Christians'' with Andrew Greeley, ''Following in Father's Footsteps: Social Mobility in Ireland'', and ''Inequality by Design''

Education

Michael Hout received a BA in Sociology and History from the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

in 1972, and an MA in 1973 and a PhD in Sociology in 1976 from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

Work

He has served as a professor at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

University of California-Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

, and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

Awards

Michael Hout's honors include election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1997, the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 2003, and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 2006. He received the Otis Dudley Duncan Award for ''Century of Difference'' from the American Sociological Association's section on Population in 2007, and the Clifford C. Clogg Memorial Award given by the Population Association of America in 1996.

Research

''Inequality by Design'' argued that the hyper-individualism of inequality studies like '' The Bell Curve'' captured some significant aspects of the rank of individuals but could never account for the rapidly growing inequality of jobs, wages, and family outcomes, and life chances. It expanded on work Michael Hout completed on the interaction between socioeconomic background and higher education in social mobility in the United States and Europe. A different line of work on the demography of American religion and religious institutions documented the role of birth rates in the rise of Evangelical churches and the decline of Mainline ones. With

Claude S. Fischer Claude Serge Fischer (born January 9, 1948) is an American sociologist and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in urban sociology, research methods, and American socie ...

, Hout has documented American's declining religious affiliation since 1990 and developed an explanation rooted in generational turnover and political polarization. He has used similar models to explain ethic attachments and class voting patterns.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hout, Michael 1950 births Living people American sociologists New York University faculty University of Pittsburgh alumni Indiana University alumni Members of the American Philosophical Society