Rob Mare's research trajectory as a model of cumulative science

Rob Mare's research elaborated and deepened the “basic model” of social stratification articulated by Blau and Duncan. Mare modeled education, the central explanatory variable in the Blau-Duncan model, as a series of transitions from lower to higher achievement. This approach made the model more realistic and helped focus substantive attention on high school dropout. He, in collaboration with Winship, added unemployment to the stratifying outcomes. With several collaborators, mostly students, he added fertility and mortality to the model. Most recently he articulated a multigenerational model that applied the demography to dynasties and challenged researchers to think more about systems aspects of stratification. In a unique career, Rob Mare expanded the “old school” one-sex, two-generation model in all dimensions. He left us with a two-sex, multigenerational model that addresses changes in both the stratification system and fundamental demography.