Bruce Western is a Harvard University sociology professor and quantitative social scientist who directs the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
His first book, Between Class and Market: Postwar Unionization in the Capitalist Democracies (Princeton University Press, 1997), examines the growth and decline of trade unions in capitalist democracies.
Western's recent scholarly work has focused on the link between social inequality and the growth of prison and jail population in the United States. He finds that the penal system has become a common presence in the lives of poor Americans, with lasting effects on their life chances.
Western received his bachelor's degree in government from the University of Queensland, Australia, and his master's and doctorate in sociology from the UCLA.
