Jennifer
Van Hook

Director, Population Research Institute,
Roy C. Buck Professor of Sociology and Demography

Expertise:

Social Sciences
Politics & Policy

Focus Areas:

Demography
Population Research

In The Media:

Request

About

Van Hook has received research grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health
Her current research work engages in core debates currently confronting American society about whether it can successfully integrate increasingly diverse waves of newcomers

Jennifer Van Hook conducts demographic research on the settlement and incorporation patterns of U.S. immigrants, with one strand of her work focusing on illegal immigration. Her work also focuses on the social, economic and health assimilation of immigrants and their descendants.

She is currently working on a project that uses linked U.S. Census data to better understand the assimilation process as it unfolded for Mexican immigrants across the 20th century.

In The Media

The fight over the 2020 census citizenship question, explained

from Vox June 12, 2019

According to Jennifer Van Hook, a professor of sociology and demography at Penn State University, demographic groups that have large shares of unauthorized immigrants are the ones most likely to inaccurately mark themselves as citizens

2020 Census citizenship question awaits Supreme Court review

from PolitiFact April 1, 2019

"Ocasio-Cortez at the hearing said the proposed 2020 citizenship question was not a reinstatement of the 1950 question. It’s 'quite materially different,' she said. Is it? That depends on the meaning of 'materially different,' said Jennifer Van Hook, Roy C. Buck professor of sociology and demography at Penn State University. 'The wording of the question and mode of interview are different, but both questions get at similar information,' Van Hook said."

Trump officials claim they can avoid 2020 census problems caused by controversial citizenship question. Experts are very skeptical

from Science April 13, 2018

"Like many social scientists, Van Hook thinks that the current hyperpartisan debate over immigration could make the data from future surveys even less reliable."

Trump Administration Plans to Check Your Answer on Census Citizenship Question

from The Wall Street Journal April 3, 2018

"A 2013 study showed citizenship misreporting on the bureau’s American Community Survey was common among recent immigrants from all countries, and among Mexican men no matter how long they had lived in the U.S. Jennifer Van Hook of Penn State University and James Bachmeier, now at Temple University, compared federal immigration statistics with the ACS, which asks about birthplace, citizenship and an immigrant’s arrival year."

Why adding a citizenship question to the census launched a political firestorm

from The Washington Post March 27, 2018

"That concern isn’t applicable only to undocumented residents. As Pennsylvania State University demographics professor Jennifer Van Hook wrote last month, focus groups conducted by the bureau last year showed that the concern was more widespread. The Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy may have increased mistrust among all immigrants, not just those who are undocumented. During focus group interviews conducted by the Census Bureau roughly six months into Trump’s presidency, immigrants appeared anxious and reluctant to cooperate with Census Bureau interviewers. They mentioned fears of deportation, the elimination of DACA, a “Muslim ban” and ICE raids. One respondent walked out when the questionnaire turned to the topic of citizenship, leaving the interviewer alone in his apartment."