Peter Rich focuses his research on the connection between structural inequalities and individual choices in the United States. How do selection processes reflect and reinforce racial and socioeconomic gaps in educational attainment, wealth accumulation, childhood health, and economic opportunity? How do family decisions about where to live and send children to school contribute to segregation and the persistence of inequality over time and between generations? And how are choices influenced not only by individual resources and preferences, but also by public policy and demographic context?

Professor Rich’s publications and working papers engage three research areas:

1. Dimensions of inequality in parental housing and schooling decisions 
2. The expression of social status hierarchies in market behavior
3. Economic insecurity and education policy

Professor Rich is affiliated with Cornell’s Center for the Study of Inequality and the Cornell Population Center. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley and his master’s and Ph.D. from New York University.

About Peter Rich