Nancy E. Riley

Affiliation: Sociology

A. Myrick Freeman Professor of Social Sciences Emeriti

Research and Teaching Interests

Asian American experience and politics; US empire; race/ethnicity in Hawai`i; reproductive health and politics; public health; gender; social demography (feminist and critical demography); Asia (East Asia and China); birth planning in China.

Nancy Riley’s current research is focused on Hawai`i and includes a book project, Chinatown, Honolulu: Place, Race, and Empire, under contract with Columbia University Press. It uses archival, observation, interview, and census data to explore the experience and role of Hawai`i’s Chinese in the US empire.

Books

Riley, Nancy E and Nilanjana Chatterjee. 2023. Controlling Reproduction: Women, Society, and State Power. Polity Press.

Riley, Nancy E. and Jan Brunson, editors. 2018. International Handbook on Gender and Demographic Processes. Springer.

Riley, Nancy E. 2017. Population in China. Polity Press.

Riley, Nancy E. 2012. Laboring in Paradise: Gender, Work, and Family in a Chinese Economic Zone. Springer Press.

Riley, Nancy E. and Krista Van Vleet. 2011. Making Families Through Adoption. Pine Forge/ Sage Press.

Riley, Nancy E. and James McCarthy. 2003. Demography in the Age of the Postmodern. Cambridge University Press.

Articles and Chapters

Riley, Nancy E. 2019. "The Demography of Gender." The Handbook of Population. Dudley Poston, editor. Springer.

Riley, Nancy E. and Deborah DeGraff. 2018. “Measuring gender in the context of demographic change.” In NE Riley and J Brunson, eds. International Handbook on Gender and Demographic Processes. Springer, pp. 15-36.

Chatterjee, Nilanjana and Nancy E. Riley. 2018. “Women, Biopower and the Making of Demographic Knowledge: India's Demographic and Health Survey.” In NE Riley and J Brunson, eds. International Handbook on Gender and Demographic Processes. Springer, pp. 37-54.

Riley, Nancy E. 2018. “Stratified reproduction.” In NE Riley and J Brunson, eds. International Handbook on Gender and Demographic Processes. Springer, pp. 117-138.

Riley, Nancy E. 2017. "Good mothering in China: Effects of Migration, Low Fertility, and Birth Constraints," in D. Poston, ed. Low Fertility Regimes and Demographic and Societal Changes. Springer Press, (pp. 115-132).

Riley, Nancy E. forthcoming. "Patriarchies Old and New in Chinese Society." in Handbook of Chinese Culture and Society. Kevin Latham, editor. Routledge.

Riley, Nancy E. 2008. "Gender and Modernity in a Chinese Economic Zone." in K. Ferguson and M. Mironesco, eds. Gender and Globalization in Asia and the Pacific, pp. 213-229. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press.

Chatterjee, Nilanjana and Nancy E. Riley. 2001. "Planning an Indian modernity: The gendered politics of fertility control.” Signs 26 (3): 811-845 (spring).

Riley, Nancy E. 1999. “Challenging Demography: Contributions from Feminist Theory.” Sociological Forum 14 (3): 369-397 (Sept).

Riley, Nancy E. 1998. "Research on Gender in Demography: Limitations and Constraints." Population Research and Policy Review 17: 521-538 (Dec).

Riley, Nancy E. 1997. "American Adoptions of Chinese Girls: the socio-political matrices of individual decisions" Women's Studies International Forum 20 (1): 87-102.

Riley, Nancy E. 1995. Chinese Women's Lives: Rhetoric and Reality. East-West Center, Honolulu: AsiaPacific Issues No. 25 (September).

Riley, Nancy E. 1994. "Interwoven Lives: Parents, Marriage and Guanxi in China," Journal of Marriage and the Family 56 (4): 791-803 (Nov).

Bauer, John, Wang Feng, Nancy E. Riley and Zhao Xiaohua. 1992. "Gender inequality in urban China: education and employment," Modern China 18 (3): 333-370 (July).

Coale, Ansley, Wang Feng, Nancy E. Riley and Lin Fude. 1991. "Recent trends in fertility and nuptiality in China," Science 251 (4992): 389-393.

Education

PhD, Johns Hopkins University
MPH, University of Hawai`i
MA, University of Hawai`i
BA, University of Pennsylvania

Department of Sociology

Nancy E. Riley

Research and Teaching Interests

Selected Publications

Education