Loretta Bass

International Migration, Child Labor, Stratification, Fertility, Demography

• 2023-24 Jefferson Science Fellowship, Selected by the National Academies of Sciences for position at the US Agency for International Development, Washington, DC. 
• 2018 Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professorship, University of Oklahoma

Loretta came to the University of Oklahoma earning her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Connecticut and completing a two-year appointment in the Population Division at the U.S. Census Bureau. Loretta is a demographer who focuses her research on stratification issues and civil and human rights in the United States, Africa, and Europe. Her book, African Immigrant Families Another France (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), examines the integration experiences of international migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa to France. Her prior book, Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), offers a window on the lives of child workers in 43 African countries.

Loretta is currently the Series Editor for the Sociological Studies of Children and Youth (SSCY), and serves on the Editorial Board for the journals, Social Problems and Population Research and Policy Review. In addition, she has served in leadership positions in the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Children and Youth Section, first as Newsletter Editor (1999-2003) and later as Chair of the Section (2010-12). She also served on the ASA National Membership Committee (2018-19) and as the Secretary-Treasurer for the ASA International Migration Section (2016-19). Active in the International Sociological Association (ISA), Loretta served on the Board of the RC53 - Research Committee on the Sociology of Childhood (2006-10), later as President (2014-18), and currently as a Board member (2023-27). Loretta also served as Secretary-Treasurer of the ISA Thematic Group on Human Rights for an extended Covid term (2018-23). Loretta currently serves as the President of the ISA RC 31, Research Committee on Migration (2023-27).

Loretta's research agenda has been supported through funding from the National Science Foundation, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the U.S. Census Bureau, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, and the University of Oklahoma Foundation.