About
Hi, I am Jingying. I am a PhD student in the SNSF research project Labour Markets as Emergent Mobility Networks at the Chair of Prof. Per Block at the University of Zurich, co-supervised by Prof. Christiaan Monden at the University of Oxford.
My main research interests are social mobility, social stratification in the labour market, and advanced statistical modelling. In my first doctoral project, I investigate how partner choices are structured around occupations beyond endogamy and homogamy; my second doctoral project examines patterns of cross-occupation moves that reflect how people with different educational attainment follow the career line. I am currently working on how occupational gender segregation persists despite people's frequent occupation changes.
I hold an MSc in Social Research from the University of Edinburgh and a Diploma in Japanese Language and Literature (minor in Psychology) from Tsinghua University.
Research
Publications
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Wang, J., Block, P., 2026.
"The structure of inter-occupational marriages in the United States 1970–2021."
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 106, 101203.
The occupation one holds is a major indicator of income, education, cultural and social capital, and day-to-day experiences. As such, understanding the network of relations between occupations is a natural sociological question. We explore the structure of inter-occupational marriages in the United States 1970–2021. Using a social network approach, our analysis shows that people marry others from their own occupation and occupations with similar levels of education and income. Further, for each occupation, there exist typical “spousal occupations”, that is, incumbents of many occupations mostly partner with spouses from a small set of other occupations. We link these occupational matches to occupations’ signaling power and broader social interaction structures. These patterns remained mostly constant since the 1970s. However, the structuring power of occupation varies by gender and occupational status. Individuals from higher-status occupations married into a narrower set of occupations, although this equalized in later analyzed periods, with women experiencing this change earlier than men. Finally, occupational marriages influence household inequality, which is due equally to education/income homogamy and occupation-specific marriage patterns. In sum, we show how occupations have substantially structured individuals’ partner choices over the last 50 years, having real consequences for household inequality.
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Peterman, A., Wang, J., Kamto Sonke, K. and Steinert, J.I., 2026.
"Social safety nets, women's economic achievements and agency in 45 countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis."
Nature Human Behaviour, 10(4), pp.698–714.
There are increasing calls for economic assistance in the form of social safety nets (SSNs) to be designed and implemented to promote women’s economic inclusion and agency, contributing to closing gender disparities globally. Here we investigate the extent to which SSNs affect women’s economic achievements and agency through a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials implemented in low- and middle-income countries. We searched six databases utilizing search strings in English, French and Spanish through December 2024. Studies were assessed for risk of bias using an adapted version of the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tool. Our sample includes 1,307 effect sizes from 93 studies, representing 218,828 women across 45 low- and middle-income countries. Using robust variance estimation meta-analysis, we show significant overall pooled effects (Hedges’ g = 0.107, P < 0.001, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.085–0.129), driven by increases in economic achievements (productive work, savings, assets and expenditures) and agency (voice, autonomy and decision-making). We find significant treatment effects for unconditional cash transfers (Hedges’ g = 0.128, P < 0.001, 95% CI 0.097 to 0.159), social care services (Hedges’ g = 0.122, P < 0.001, 95% CI 0.071 to 0.174), asset transfers (Hedges’ g = 0.115, P < 0.001, 95% CI 0.071 to 0.160) and public work programmes (Hedges’ g = 0.127, P = 0.031, 95% CI 0.015 to 0.239). We find comparatively smaller effects for conditional cash transfers (Hedges’ g = 0.059, P = 0.019, 95% CI 0.011 to 0.108) and found no evidence of effects for in-kind transfers. SSNs can empower women economically and socially; however, limitations and evidence gaps remain, including the need for further rigorous testing of design and operational components, the role of contextual factors and cost–benefit analysis with a gender lens.
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Silima, M., Christofides, N., Franchino-Olsen, H., Woollett, N., Wang, J., Ho-Foster, A., Maleke, K. and Meinck, F., 2024.
"Co-occurring intimate partner violence, mental health, human immunodeficiency virus, and parenting among women: a scoping review."
Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(5), pp.4102–4116.
Little research exists on the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–intimate partner violence (IPV)–mental health (MH) syndemic impact on parenting. The objective of this scoping review is to identify and summarize the available evidence regarding the syndemic relationship between HIV or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), IPV, and poor MH among mothers and caregivers who identify as women. We conducted the review according to the Joanna Briggs Institute and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and meta-analyses extension for scoping reviews guidelines; a comprehensive search was conducted from 2001 to September 2023. The inclusion criteria targeted studies examining at least two of the HIV, IPV, or MH epidemics among participants and their syndemic impact on parenting. Both qualitative and quantitative studies were included. Covidence software was used to screen and extract data. Twenty-three studies were included in the analysis. Most of the studies were conducted in the United States. Furthermore, all the studies used quantitative research designs, with most being longitudinal. Most of the research was concentrated on the IPV–MH syndemic, with no research found on the HIV–IPV syndemic impact on parenting. Research on the HIV–IPV–MH syndemic found that an HIV diagnosis exacerbated the negative impacts of IPV–MH on parenting. Research on IPV–MH showed that this syndemic significantly influences parenting, leading to less nurturing and more punitive behaviors. Studies did not find a direct association between IPV and harsh parenting practices; the relationship was mediated by poor MH. Studies examining the HIV–MH syndemic found that anxiety and maternal depression were the most frequent MH disorders. The review revealed that living with the different syndemics (IPV–MH–HIV, HIV–MH, and IPV–MH) adversely affects parenting practices, resulting in harsher parenting.
Working Papers
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Wang, J., Block, P. "Men's and Women's Education-based Differences in Occupational Mobility." Under review.
Individuals’ job mobility is structured by cross-occupation pathways in the labor market, called career lines; following these pathways generally results in upward mobility. This study examines which gender-education groups have a higher tendency to follow career lines. Analytically, we conceptualize this by measuring how organized and orderly the mobility of each group is at the aggregate level. Empirically, we apply a model for mobility networks to German register data to compare if and how tertiary education is associated with more organized occupational mobility by gender. We find that the education premium in terms of following career lines is limited to male workers, whereas for women, tertiary education is associated with less organized moves. This is found to be attributable to the limited availability of institutionalized mobility pathways in female-concentrated high-end occupations. Overall, we propose an alternative approach to understand occupational career progression beyond socio-economic aspects by modelling macro-level mobility structure.
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Dai, Y., Wang, J. "Spousal Occupations in the Twentieth-Century Yangtze Valley." Under review.
Spousal occupations significantly influence a family’s economic condition, social capital, and everyday experience. Changes in spousal occupations form a major aspect of transformation in Chinese families over the twentieth century. This study utilises 175 lineage genealogies with 57,501 couples to examine the spousal occupations in the Yangtze Valley over the twentieth century. We examine the patterns of endogamy, within-sex alignment, and cross-sex alignment, tracking their overtime changes and differences between occupational groups. Endogamy, denoting the tendency of having a same-occupation spouse, fluctuated in a narrow range among the 1881–1950 birth cohorts, then increased substantially for the 1951–1980 cohorts, with the turning point reflecting changes before and after the Reform and Opening-up. Higher degrees of endogamy are likely facilitated by family-based business, common workplace, and shared employment opportunities. Within-sex alignment, denoting the tendency of same-sex individuals of the same occupation having spouses in a limited set of occupations, shows patterns similar to endogamy, but is likely attributable to common living circles, preference shaped by occupations, and familial arrangement of labour. Cross-sex alignment, denoting the tendency of men and women of the same occupation having spouses in a limited set of occupations, was negative for all cohorts, suggesting that even when men and women share the same occupation, they tend to marry spouses from distinctly different occupations. We argue that the lack of cross-sex alignment is related to the different occupational indications and social expectations for men and women. Our study demonstrates that the likely mechanisms behind the formation of spousal occupations have been shaped by changes in economic structure and regimes, marriage institutions, social organisation, and gender norms. These influences operated through both marriage formation and post-marriage labour arrangements.
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Block, P., Hoffman, M., Keiser, N., Mepham, K., Morellini, M., Wang, J. "Should Mobility Be Modelled with Network Methods? An Empirical Comparison Using Five Types of Mobility." Under review.
Network methods are increasingly popular for analysing various types of mobility, where mobility tables are treated as directed, weighted networks. These approaches challenge the dominant covariate-based understanding of mobility by focusing on endogenous network structures, such as concentration, reciprocation, or clustering. In this spirit, recent extensions to loglinear models have fully integrated statistical network approaches to the study of mobility. Given the novelty and complexity of these methods, we empirically assess the necessity of modelling endogenous structures across five common types of mobility. For each type, we compare the fit of a loglinear model with (i) one network parameter, (ii) one measured covariate, and (iii) one latent covariate. Model fit is assessed by the extent to which the model represents how much individuals from the same origin select the same destination, and corroborated using model likelihoods. We find that the network model consistently fits the data best, suggesting its usefulness for research explaining the destination selection of mobile individuals.
Conference and Seminar Presentations
- 2026
- RC28 Spring Meeting, Seville, Spain.
Stockholm University, Sweden.
Uppsala University, Sweden.
Linköping University, Sweden. - 2025
- ECSR, Cologne, Germany.
Sunbelt XLV, Paris, France.
RC28 Spring Meeting, Milan, Italy.
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. - 2024
- ECSR, Barcelona, Spain.
Sunbelt XLIV, Edinburgh, Scotland.
University of Lausanne, Switzerland.