Mary C. Brinton

Research Interests: Gender inequality; labor markets and employment (Europe, East Asia, United States); social demography; mixed methods; economic sociology; Japanese society.

Professor Mary Brinton is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.   She was the Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies from  2018 to 2023.  Brinton is  also a Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She joined the Harvard faculty in 2003, having previously taught at the University of Chicago for 12 years and at Cornell University for 4 years. Brinton served as Chair of the Harvard Department of Sociology from 2010 to 2016.

Brinton’s research and teaching focus on gender inequality, labor markets and employment, social demography, economic sociology, and Japanese society. Her research combines qualitative and quantitative methods to study institutional change and its effects on individual action, particularly in labor markets and in education. Brinton generally engages in primary data collection for her research projects, and has designed social surveys, interviews, and observational studies in Japan and Korea. Brinton studied sociolinguistics as an undergraduate at Stanford University, and earned an MA in Japanese Studies and an MA and PhD in Sociology at the University of Washington.