MAURICIO BUCCA

mebucca@uc.cl | mebucca.github.io
Avenida Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Casilla 306, Correo 22, Macul, Santiago
Google Scholar · GitHub

EDUCATION

2018 Ph.D. in Sociology, Cornell University, United States
     Ph.D. Minor in Applied Statistics
     Committee: Kim Weeden (chair), Kendra Bischoff, Vida Maralani, Martin Wells (Statistics)

2016 Master of Arts in Sociology, Cornell University, United States

2009 Master’s in Sociology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

2007 Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
     Professional Sociologist Title · Minor in Philosophy

2010–2011 Analyst, Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia (General Secretariat of the Presidency Ministry), Government of Chile

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Intergenerational mobility, social inequality, assortative mating, beliefs about inequality, quantitative methods for policy analysis

PUBLISHED ARTICLES

  • Robles, A., Pesando, L.M., Abufhele, A., Bucca, M., Urbina, D.R. (2024). Marrying across Borders in Latin America: Visualizing Intermarriage Flows. Socius (IF: 2.0), 10. doi

  • Bucca, M. (2024). Colorism Revisited: The Effects of Skin Color on Educational and Labor Market Outcomes in the United States. Sociological Science (IF: 2.1), 11. doi

  • Bucca, M., Drouhot, L.G. (2024). Intergenerational Social Mobility Among the Children of Immigrants in Western Europe: Between Socioeconomic Assimilation and Disadvantage. Sociological Science (IF: 2.1), 11. doi

  • Bucca, M. (2024). Are Within-Racial Group Inequalities by Skin Color Really Greater Than Inequalities Between Racial Groups in the United States? Socius (IF: 2.0), 10. doi

  • Bucca, M., Urbina, D.R. (2021). Lasso Regularization for Selection of Log-Linear Models: An Application to Educational Assortative Mating. Sociological Methods & Research (IF: 6.5), 50(4). doi
    Award: American Sociological Association Methodology’s Clifford Clogg Award

  • Weeden, K.A., Cha, Y., Bucca, M. (2016). Long Work Hours, Part-Time Work, and Trends in the Gender Gap in Pay, the Motherhood Wage Penalty, and the Fatherhood Wage Premium. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences (IF: 3.9), 2(4). doi
    Media coverage: New York Times

  • Bucca, M. (2020). Heatmaps for Patterns of Association in Log-Linear Models. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World (IF: 2.0). doi

  • Molina, M.D., Bucca, M., Macy, M.W. (2019). It’s Not Just How the Game is Played, It’s Whether You Win or Lose. Science Advances (IF: 12.5), 5(7). doi
    Media coverage: New York Times, Washington Post, New Scientist, Science Daily, Cornell Chronicle, De Correspondent, Esquire

  • Bucca, M. (2016). Merit and Blame in Unequal Societies: Explaining Latin Americans’ Beliefs about Wealth and Poverty. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility (IF: 2.0), 44. doi

ONGOING RESEARCH

  • Linking Absolute and Relative Mobility: A Tractable Framework, a Decomposition Method, and an Application to Black–White Mobility Differences
    Status: Under Review · Media coverage: Tercera Dosis

  • People Reject Unfairness but Normalize Inequality (with Mario D. Molina)
    Status: Under Review · Media coverage: Diario El País

  • High Migration yet Low Intermarriage: Tracing Demographic Profiles of Latin America’s Cross-Border Unions (with Robles, A., Pesando, L.M., Abufhele, A., Urbina, D.R.)
    Status: Working paper

  • Class-Based Name Giving Patterns in 20th Century Chile (with Mario Molina, Luca Pesando, Roberto Cantillán)
    Status: Working paper · Media coverage: Radio Bío Bío

  • Black–White Differences in Intergenerational Mobility in the U.S.: Evidence from Heterogeneous Sibling Correlations
    Status: Working paper

  • Once in a Blue Moon: Barriers to Intermarriage among Second-Generation Muslims in France (with Lucas Drouhot)
    Status: Working paper

  • Educational Assortative Marriage and Income Inequality among Black and White Families in the U.S., 1976–2017
    Status: Working paper

  • Intersectional Dynamics of Intermarriage and Migration in Latin America (with Luca Pesando, Alejandra Abufhele, Daniela Urbina)
    Status: In preparation

  • The Impact of Air Pollution and Extreme Weather on Educational Achievement by SES in Chilean Schools (with Risto Conte)
    Status: In preparation

  • Intergenerational Mobility and Occupational Plans (with Kim Weeden)
    Status: In preparation

AWARDS AND GRANTS

2026       Fondecyt Regular — New Approaches to the Study of Social Mobility: Expanding Theory, Data, and Methods

2022–2025  Núcleos de Ciencias Sociales — Millennium Nucleus for Labor Market Mismatch: Causes and Consequences (Principal Investigator)

2022–2025  Fondecyt Iniciación — Inequality of Outcomes and Opportunity and Its Effects on the Legitimacy of Inequality and Social Cohesion (Principal Investigator)

2018       Max Weber Fellowship, European University Institute (EUI)

2010       Beca Chile Doctorado, Fondecyt, Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID), Government of Chile

2010       Fulbright Equal Opportunities Scholarship, Fondecyt, ANID, Government of Chile, Fulbright Commission

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2025 — “Why Do Some Groups Experience More Mobility than Others?” COES Future of Social Mobility Conference, PUC Chile · “Why Do Some Groups Experience More Mobility than Others?” International Conference LM2C2 · “People Reject Unfairness but Normalize Inequality.” ECSR Annual Conference, University of Cologne · “Class-Based Name Giving Patterns in 20th Century Chile.” Sociological Science Conference, Cornell University

2024 — “People Reject Unfairness but Normalize Inequality.” ISUC Colloquium, PUC Chile · “People Reject Unfairness but Normalize Inequality.” Sixth Annual Conference on Experimental Sociology, Università di Torino · “Class-Based Name Giving Patterns in 20th Century Chile.” Chilean Congress of Sociology, Universidad Alberto Hurtado

2023 — “People Reject Unfairness but Normalize Inequality.” School of Government Colloquium, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez · “Workflow: Best Practices for Efficient and Reproducible Data Work.” Invited Speaker, Centre for Demographic Studies, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona · “Once in a Blue Moon.” Invited Speaker, Social Research and Public Policy Cluster, NYU Abu-Dhabi · “Online Experiments in the Social Sciences.” Keynote Speaker, Summer Institute in Computational Social Science · “Inequality of Opportunity and Outcomes.” Workshop on Experiments on Social Inequality

2022 — “White-Black Differences in Intergenerational Transmission.” Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Atlanta (×2) · “Educational Assortative Mating and Income Inequality among Black and White Families in the US.” PAA Annual Meeting · “Once in a Blue Moon.” PAA Annual Meeting · “Inequality of Opportunity and Outcomes.” Annual Meeting of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists · “Inequality of Opportunity and Outcomes.” Summer Institute of Computational Social Science · “How Adolescent Plans Affect Social Mobility.” ASA Annual Meeting

2021 — “Intergenerational Social Mobility Among the Second Generation in Europe.” CLIC Research Centre · “Colorism Revisited.” Population Association of America Annual Meeting · “Once in a Blue Moon.” ASA Annual Meeting

TEACHING AND SUPERVISION

Undergraduate

  • Data Analysis II (SOL114) — 2023–2025
  • Sociology of Inequality (SOL186S) — 2022, 2024
  • Formation and Development of Modern Society (SOL102S) — 2010
  • Sociology of Rationalization (SOL130T) — 2009

Graduate

  • Categorical Data Analysis (SOL3070) · Thesis Seminar (SOL3080) · Thesis (SOL3081) — 2020–2025
  • Social Stratification (SOL3016) — 2024
  • Doctoral Thesis I–IV (SOL3093–3096) · Annual Follow-up Activities — 2021–2023
  • Doctoral Thesis Project II (SOL3091) · Candidacy Exam (SOL3092) — 2020–2022

Other

  • Workshop on Simulation and Resampling Methods for Inference and Hypothesis Testing, Graduate Academy, University of Lucerne, Switzerland — 2019
  • Introduction to Quantitative Methods, Part-time Professor, SPS Department, European University Institute, Italy — 2019
  • SPS Summer Academy, European University Institute, Italy — 2019
  • Event History Analysis, Teaching Assistant, Cornell University, United States — 2009–2011, 2015

Completed Master’s Thesis Supervision

  • Rebeca Orellana (2022–2024) — “Citizen populist discourse during the Chilean social outburst”
  • Diego Olivares (2022–2024) — “Globalization or Glocalization? A case study of music consumption trends on the Spotify platform at the country level”
  • Matias Urra (2020–2023) — “Effect of economic insecurity on satisfaction with democracy in Chile (1995–2018)”
  • David García (2020–2023) — “Effects of Socioeconomic Status of origin and academic competencies of school students on their Transition from Secondary Education to Higher Education”

Master’s Thesis Committee Participation

Karina Maldonado (2022–2026) · Alonso Gonzalo Quintero Contreras (2024–2025) · Catalina Belén Alarcón Barbe (2023–2025) · Josefina Teresa Manns Soto (2023–2025) · Cristobal Karle (2022–2024) · Constanza Cabrera (2022–2024) · Eleonora Jotz (2021–2023) · Natalia Yañez (2021–2023) · Martín Aranzaes (2020–2023) · Lya Rogers (2019–2023) · Marlene Rivas (2019–2022) · Gregorio Hernandez (2018, 2021) · William Baeza (2018, 2021)

Doctoral Dissertation Direction

  • Roberto Velásquez (2019–2025, Completed) — “The Art of Worth: An Empirically-Based Theory of Artistic Value, Tastemakers, and Network Dynamics in Chile”
  • Marlene Rivas (2023–Present) — “Equalization, Compensation, or Compounding of Social Origin (Dis)advantages: Effects of a Preferential School Subsidy Policy on Educational Outcomes and Transitions”
  • Roberto Cantillán (2022–Present) — “Structurally Conditioned Diffusion Reproduces Skills-Based Stratification”
  • Matías Gomez (2021–Present) — “Household Debt and Protest Dynamics in Chile”
  • Guillermo Beck (2021)

SERVICE TO THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY

2026–Present Associate Editor, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility

Reviewer: American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, International Migration Review, Sociology of Education, Work & Occupations, Sociological Science, Sociological Methods and Research, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, Social Science Research, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Acta Sociologica, Population Research and Policy Review, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, European Sociological Review

Evaluator: ANID (National Agency for Research and Development)

Memberships: RC28 · American Sociological Association · Population Association of America

2023–Present Expert, Inclusive Policy Lab, UNESCO
2024–Present Social Programs Evaluation Expert, Budget Office, Government of Chile

Service at UC

  • Faculty Representative, Academic Council, Institute of Sociology — 2023–2027
  • Member, School Director Search Committee, Sociology — 2025–2026
  • Academic Pastoral Advisor — 2024–2025
  • Director, “Quantitative and Computational Social Science Research Group” Laboratory — 2022–Present
  • Diploma in Data Analysis for the Social Sciences using R — 2020–2024
  • Creation: Minor in Computational Social Sciences — 2026
  • Head of the Diploma Program in Webscraping and Web Data Access — 2023
  • Open workshops on research techniques and methods; methodological section of the undergraduate degree exam — 2020–Present

LANGUAGES

Spanish (Native) · English (Fluent) · Italian (Fluent)

REFERENCES

Kim Weeden
Jan Rock Zubrow ‘77 Professor, Department of Sociology, Cornell University, USA
+1 (607) 254-4904 · kw74@cornell.edu

Fabrizio Bernardi
Professor of Sociology, SPS Department (Head), European University Institute, Italy
+39 (055) 4685-316/3491 · fabrizio.bernardi@eui.eu