Quadagno, Jill S.

(Jill Sobel Quadagno)

PERSONAL: Female. Education: Pennsylvania State University, B.A., 1964; University of California Berkeley, M.A., 1966; University of Kansas, Ph.D., 1976.

ADDRESSES: Home—250 Rosehill Dr. N., Tallahassee, FL 32312. Office—Florida State University, Department of Sociology, Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy, 526 Bellamy Bldg., Tallahassee, FL 32306-2270. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer, sociologist, researcher, and educator. University of Kansas, Manhattan, assistant professor, 1977–81, associate professor, 1981–85, professor of Sociology, 1985–87; Florida State University, Tallahassee, Mildred and Claude Pepper eminent scholar in social gerontology and professor of sociology, 1987–. Harvard University, National Science Foundation visiting professorship for women, 1988. President's Bi-Partisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, senior policy advisor, 1994.

MEMBER: American Sociological Association (vice president, 1993, president, 1997–98), Sociology Honor Society, Social Science Honor Society, Sociological Research Association, National Academy of Social Insurance, Gerontological Society (member, behavior and social sciences public policy committee, 1987–90, member, Student Awards Committee, 1998, member, Research Task Force, 2001–02); Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (member, national advisory committee, Scholars in Health Policy Research Program, 1997–2002, member, site selection committee, 2001–02), Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Predoctoral fellow, National Institute of Mental Health, 1965–66; predoctoral fellow, Midwest Council for Social Research in Aging, 1974–76; Carroll D. Clark Award for Outstanding Scholarship, University of Kansas, 1976; postdoctoral fellow, Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Cambridge University, 1979; National Needs postdoctoral fellow, National Science Foundation, 1979–80; elected to Kansas Women's Hall of Fame, 1984; Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute fellowship, Radcliffe College, 1987–88 (declined); University Teaching Award, Florida State University, 1992; appointed fellow, Gerontological Society of America, 1992; Congressional fellowship, American Sociological Association, 1994; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship, 1994–95; American Council of Learned Societies fellowship, 1994–95; Distinguished Scholar Award, American Sociological Association Section on Aging, 1994; C. Wright Mills Award finalist, Society for the Study of Social Problems, 1995, and Outstanding Book on the Subject of Human Rights recognition, Gustavos Meyers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America, 1996, both for The Color of Welfare; invited fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, 2000; Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, University of Kansas, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 2001–02; Sociology Graduate Student Union Award for contribution to graduate education, 2004; grants from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2000–04, 2001–02, National Institute on Aging, 2001–03, Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, 2001–02, 2003, Florida Department of Elder Affairs, 2002, Agency for Health Care Administration, 2002–04, Florida State University Cornerstone Program, 2002–04.

WRITINGS:

Aging, the Individual, and Society: Readings in Social Gerontology, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1980.

Aging in Early Industrial Society: Work, Family, and Social Policy in Nineteenth-Century England, Academic Press (New York, NY), 1982.

(Editor, with Warren A. Peterson) Social Bonds in Later Life: Aging and Interdependence, Sage Publications (Beverly Hills, CA), 1985.

(With Stuart A. Queen and Robert W. Habenstein) The Family in Various Cultures, Harper & Row (New York, NY), 1985.

The Transformation of Old-Age Security: Class and Politics in the American Welfare State, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1988.

(Editor, with John Myles) States, Labor Markets, and the Future of Old-Age Policy, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1991.

The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(Compiler, with Debra Street) Aging for the Twenty-First Century: Readings in Social Gerontology, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

(Editor, with Marie E. Cowart) From Nursing Homes to Home Care, Haworth Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(With Melissa A. Hardy and Lawrence Hazelrigg) Ending a Career in the Auto Industry: Thirty and Out, Plenum Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Aging and the Life Course: An Introduction to Social Gerontology, McGraw-Hill College (Boston, MA), 1999, 3rd edition, 2005.

One Nation, Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to journals and periodicals, including European Sociological Review, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Journal of Policy History, Sociological Perspectives, Gerontologist, and Social Problems.

Contributor to books, including Ethnic Families in America, edited by Charles H. Mindel and Robert W. Habenstein, Elsevier Scientific Publishing (New York, NY), 1976; Old Age in a Bureaucratic Society: The Elderly, the Experts, and the State in American History, edited by David Van Tassel and Peter Stearns, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1986; The Politics of Social Policy in the United States, edited by Ann Orloff, Margaret Weir, and Theda Skocpol, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1988; States, Labor Markets, and the Future of Old-Age Policy, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1991; Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences, edited by Robert Binstock and Linda George, Academic Press (New York, NY), 1995, new edition, 2001; The Privatization of Social Policy? Occupational Welfare and the Welfare State in America, Scandinavia, and Japan, edited by Michael Shalev, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1996; Handbook of Theories of Aging, edited by V. Bengtson and K. Warner Schaie, Springer Publishing (New York, NY), 1999; Handbook of Social Policy, edited by James Midgley, Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks, CA), 2000; Restructuring Work and the Life Course, edited by Victor Marshall and others, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001; The New Deal and Beyond: Social Welfare in the South since 1930, edited by Elna Green, University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 2003; and Cambridge Handbook of Age and Aging, edited by Malcolm Johnson, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), in press. Member of editorial board of University Press of Kansas, 1984–87, Political Power and Social Theory, 1991–, Journal of Applied Gerontology, 1991–95, Journal of Gender, Culture, and Health, 1994–96, American Sociologist, 1997–2004, Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, 2000–, and American Sociological Review, 2005–. Associate editor for periodicals, including Contemporary Sociology, 1984–86, Sociological Perspectives, 1985–90, Journal of Aging Studies, 1986–, Sociological Quarterly, 1986–89, Gerontologist, 1987–91, American Sociological Review, 1989–91, and Contemporary Sociology, 1992–94.

SIDELIGHTS: An expert on subjects such as aging, the welfare state in America, and the plight of the country's poorest and most vulnerable citizens, prolific author, educator, and sociologist Jill S. Quadagno writes on topics related to social gerontology, racism, and the lack of national health insurance in the United States. Her research interests cover subjects such as the sociology of aging, medical sociology, political sociology, and comparative historical sociology.

Contributor to many books and periodicals, Quadagno teaches at the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy at Florida State University.

The Transformation of Old-Age Security: Class and Politics in the American Welfare State provides an account of federal old-age benefits from the post-Civil War era to 1972. In addition, "a sense of history permeates this sociological study of the welfare state's late emergence in America," observed Edward D. Berkowitz in Business History Review. "In effect, Jill Quadagno adds history to the list of sociological variables." By doing so, she seeks to offer greater insight into how the relationships between sociological variables change over the years, and how the nature of the variables themselves can be altered to accommodate new situations. She points out three underlying causes for the dynamics of the welfare state in America, Berkowitz noted: the late unionization of workers in factories and on assembly lines; the effects of initiatives in the private sector; and the coexistence of two powerful economic formations: the American South, with its cotton production, and the northern states, with their industry. Berkowitz concluded that "business historians who want to find out what the historical sociologists have to offer in social welfare history should start here with one of the field's best practitioners."

States, Labor Markets, and the Future of Old-Age Policy, edited by Quadagno and John Myles, examines in depth the means whereby countries develop old-age policies. The authors also explore the pressures on old-age and retirement programs imposed by aging workers, early retirements, and increased public expenditures. The essays cover policies in Canada, Great Britain, Poland, and a number of European countries. The book is an "excellent review of each country's economic, social, and political processes that forge old-age policy," commented Mary K. Schneider in Labor Studies Journal. It is "a major contribution in the study of social policy and stands as a model for the analysis of other public policy decisions," Schneider concluded.

In The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty, Quadagno "posits that racial inequality and conflict has impeded the development of America's welfare state," commented Edwin Amenta in Social Forces. As the United States strays further away from a national health-care system or a national employment program, it also falls further behind other capitalist democracies in social support and spending. For Quadagno, racism helps explain what she views as a regressive social policy. She suggests that "social spending systems are systems of stratification that create or reinforce social cleavages," Amenta noted. Not solely a statement of social problems, Quadagno's book also offers practical suggestions for reviving functional concepts of welfare and adapting them to current social and economic realities, added Dorothy Roberts in the Yale Law Review. The work offers hope that "in today's insecure economy, people of all backgrounds can again find ways to demand that our government help protect us all," commented Ann Withorn in the Women's Review of Books.

One Nation, Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance addresses the failures of attempts at national health care reform in the United States. Quadagno clearly "explains why such reform has failed, despite apparent popular support," noted Alan Moores in Booklist. "Every one of the Western industrialized powers guarantees its citizens comprehensive coverage for essential health care—except the United States," commented a Kirkus Reviews critic. Quadagno "ably explores the logic behind this appalling fact." She examines how amortization and risk-analysis models, diverse and complex underwriting plans, and the high cost of health care have helped create a situation in which forty-five million Americans may lack basic health-care coverage. Quadagno argues that those with vested interests in health coverage, such as the insurance industry, the small business lobby, and the American Medical Association, have failed to properly make a case for reform to individuals and legislators. Insurance companies have, in fact, strongly resisted any move toward national health care. Among Quadagno's solutions to the problem are creation of a federal stop-loss program designed to help businesses and individuals cover catastrophic health-care losses not accommodated by insurance. The Kirkus Reviews critic called One Nation, Uninsured a "strongly argued account" that provides useful information to anyone who wants to urge change in a "medical system that willfully excludes so many who so need it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, January, 1998, Angela M. O'Rand, review of Ending a Career in the Auto Industry: Thirty and Out, p. 1122.

Booklist, September 1, 1994, Mary Carroll, review of The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty, p. 9; March 15, 2005, Alan Moores, review of One Nation, Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance, p. 1250.

Business History Review, spring, 1989, Edward D. Berkowitz, review of The Transformation of Old-Age Security: Class and Politics in the American Welfare State, p. 211.

Industrial and Labor Relations Review, October, 1992, Annika E. Sunden, review of States, Labor Markets, and the Future of Old-Age Policy, pp. 208-209; January, 1998, Robert Hutchens, review of Ending a Career in the Auto Industry, p. 329.

Journal of Urban History, January, 1998, Michael B. Katz, review of The Color of Welfare, p. 244.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2005, review of One Nation, Uninsured, p. 218.

Labor Studies Journal, winter, 1994, Mary K. Schneider, review of States, Labor Markets, and the Future of Old-Age Policy, p. 80.

Social Forces, September, 1996, Edwin Amenta, review of The Color of Welfare, p. 371.

Women's Review of Books, March, 1995, Ann Withorn, review of The Color of Welfare, p. 23.

Yale Law Journal, April, 1996, Dorothy E. Roberts, review of The Color of Welfare, pp. 1563-1602.