Abigail Weitzman

Biographic Data

ID3594593
NAMEAbigail Weitzman
GIVEN NAMESAbigail
FAMILY NAMEWeitzman
SIGNATUREWEITZMAN A
AFFILIATIONSThe University of Texas at Austin
ORCID0000-0001-6843-3820
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS28
TOTAL CITATIONS138
AUTHOR COUNT28
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2014
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX7

  • Respondent‐Driven Sampling as a Tool for Studying Migrants in Need of International Protection

    Open AccessMatthew Blanton, Abigail Weitzman et al.ARTICLEPopulation and Development Review2026

    Threat evasion—the need to escape imminent threats to safety and survival—is a major driver of international migration. Demographic research on threat‐evasive migration, however, remains scant, owing to a longstanding dearth of systematic data on migrants in need of international protection (MNP). To that end, we leveraged respondent‐driven sampling (RDS), a methodology designed to access “hidden” populations in the absence of a reliable sampling…

  • Anticipatory, Chronic, and Imminent

    Open AccessStephanie Koning, Goleen Samari et al.ARTICLEPopulation and Development Review2026References: 37

    Protracted armed conflicts increasingly drive long‐term displacement, yet demographic frameworks often treat forced migration from conflict settings as a response to acute, singular events. This study introduces a typology of displacement grounded in the tempo and form of conflict‐related insecurities—anticipatory, chronic, and imminent—and examines their consequences for women displaced from Myanmar to Thailand. Using survey data from 390 women,…

  • Discordant attitudes, desires, and behaviors

    Open AccessMichelle A Eilers, Abigail WeitzmanARTICLESocial Forces2026References: 18

    We explore the empirical puzzle of how conflicting attitudes and desires evolve and exert competing behavioral influences, focusing on the socially contentious case of premarital sex among young women in the United States. Leveraging intensive panel data collected for up to 2.5 years among a large, population-based sample of unmarried women aged 18–22, we show that women’s sexual attitudes and desires often follow distinct trajectories that event…

  • Hybrid Interpersonal Violence in Latin America

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, M L Caudillo et al.ARTICLEAnnual Review of Criminology2024Cited by: 1References: 37

    In this review, we argue that to understand patterns and causes of violence in contemporary Latin America, we must explicitly consider when violence takes on interpersonal qualities. We begin by reviewing prominent definitions and measurements of interpersonal violence. We then detail the proliferation of interlocking sources of regional insecurity, including gender-based violence, gangs, narcotrafficking, vigilantism, and political corruption. T…

  • Intergenerational adverse childhood experiences and adolescent migration aspirations in Nicaragua

    Open AccessM Alcaraz, Kammi K Schmeer et al.ARTICLEInternational Migration2024References: 4

    Adolescents' aspirations are strong predictors of their future outcomes, including later migration experiences. Adversity also shapes aspirations for and decisions about the future. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are measures of early exposure to adversity and may be associated with migration aspirations, though this relationship is understudied. Given high rates of gender-based violence, single-headed households, and economic insecurity, N…

  • Child Death and Mothers' Subsequent Mental Health in a High-Mortality African Community

    Open AccessE Smith-Greenaway, Abigail Weitzman et al.ARTICLEPopulation and Development Review2024References: 65

    Despite declines in child mortality rates, experiencing a child death remains a common feature of motherhood in many contemporary African populations. Yet, we lack population insights into the consequences of child death for mothers' well-being in the high-mortality regions where it concentrates. Contrasting an extensive psychology literature on the severe and long-lasting consequences of child death for parents in low-mortality settings, a long-…

  • State-Level Immigrant Policies and Ideal Family Size in the United States

    Open AccessJ A Behrman, Abigail WeitzmanARTICLEPopulation and Development Review2024Cited by: 2References: 56

    Demographers have long been interested in how fertility ideals vary in response to perceived existential threats. Although migration scholars document the increasingly threatening nature of U.S. immigration policies, little research explores how these policies shape the fertility ideals of those most affected by them. To that end, we exploit spatiotemporal variation in states' evolving immigrant policy contexts to understand the effects of differ…

  • Gendered Family Violence among Migrants Seeking International Protection

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, Jeffrey Swindle et al.ARTICLESocial Forces2024References: 35

    Although family and migration scholars recognize that intimate partner violence (IPV) can motivate women's movement between countries, little research considers IPV or other gendered family violence further back in women migrants' life histories or explores the legacy of gendered family violence in cases where such violence is not the primary push factor. Here, we analyze in-depth interviews conducted among thirty-four Latin American women seekin…

  • What Explains Socioeconomic Disparities in Early Pregnancy Rates

    Open AccessH Cha, Abigail WeitzmanARTICLESocial Forces2023

    In this study, we integrate diverse structural, social psychological, and relational perspectives to develop and test a comprehensive framework of the processes that make early pregnancy a socially stratified phenomenon. Drawing on rich panel data collected among a sample of 940 18- to 20-year-old women from a county in Michigan, we estimate nested hazard models and formal mediation analyses to simultaneously elucidate the extent to which differe…

  • Variability in mental health reporting among refugees and migrants in need of protection

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, Matthew Blanton et al.ARTICLEBMC Public Health2023

    Our findings highlight temporal variability in repeated self-reports of mental health among Latin American MNP and further highlight sociodemographic heterogeneity therein

  • Exposure to Nearby Homicides and Young Women's Reproductive Lives during the Transition to Adulthood

    Abigail Weitzman, J S Barber et al.ARTICLEAmerican Journal of Sociology2023Cited by: 4References: 105

    We merge information on the date and location of homicides in Flint, MI with georeferenced weekly panel data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life study to assess how and why nearby homicides immediately impact young women's risk of pregnancy. Women's probability of conceiving a pregnancy increased in weeks when homicides occurred within .25 miles of their homes relative to in other weeks. This increase in pregnancy risk reflected decrea…

  • How Nearby Homicides Affect Young Women's Pregnancy Desires

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, J S Barber et al.ARTICLEDemography2021Cited by: 5References: 74

    Leveraging spatiotemporal variation in homicides that occurred during a 2.5-year weekly panel survey of 387 women ages 18–22 in Flint, Michigan, we investigate how young women's desires to become pregnant and to avoid pregnancy evolve in response to local homicides during the transition to adulthood. To address the endogeneity of exposure, we explore how the same woman's pregnancy desires (1) differed, on average, across weeks before and after th…

  • Intimate Partner Violence Forgiveness Dynamics in the Context of Men's Positions as Victims and Perpetrators

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, Eli BuchbinderARTICLEJournal of Family Issues2021References: 36

    Recent years have seen increased awareness of the need to understand forgiveness in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV). The present qualitative study focused on how male batterers and female victims perceived and interacted with forgiveness. The study was based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 spouses who had been married for between 4 and 30 years. The study findings show that the male batterers perceived forgiveness co…

  • Intimate partner violence, circulating glucose, and non-communicable Disease

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, Bridget J GoosbyARTICLESSM - Population Health2020

    Analyzing data from the 2015-2016 Indian Demographic and Health Survey (N = 41,768), we investigate how women's circulating glucose varies with the severity of intimate partner violence (IPV) they have experienced in the last year and how their likelihoods of corresponding noncommunicable diseases vary with IPV severity in their lifetime. Consistent with a physiological stress response, women who have recently experienced severe IPV exhibit highe…

  • The Marital Implications of Bereavement

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, Emily Smith-GreenawayARTICLEDemography2020Cited by: 7References: 75

    In high-mortality contexts, research examining the effects of child mortality has focused almost exclusively on couples’ fertility responses while overlooking other potential family consequences. Using nationally representative survey data from 13 West and Central African countries, we estimate multilevel discrete-time hazard models to determine how women’s risk of intimate partner violence (IPV) varies with the death of children. We assess heter…

  • Sibling loss and fertility desires in the high-mortality context of Peru

    Kathleen Broussard, Abigail WeitzmanARTICLEPopulation Studies2020Cited by: 3References: 71

    Despite demographers' long-standing preoccupation with the effects of child mortality on women's fertility desires, scholars continue to know little about the consequences of other pervasive mortality exposures. We use nationally representative data from the high-mortality context of Peru to examine whether the desire to have a(nother) child varies as a function of sibling loss and to assess heterogeneity in this association by women's current nu…

  • Young women's joint relationship, sex, and contraceptive trajectories

    Open AccessBridget Brew, Abigail Weitzman et al.ARTICLEDemographic Research2020Cited by: 3References: 87

    OBJECTIVE: We identify common patterns of joint relationship, sex, and contraceptive trajectories in young adulthood and assess how selection into these trajectories differs across socioeconomic and demographic groups and varies with earlier sexual and reproductive experiences and attitudes. METHODS: We draw on a weekly panel of 581 young adult women in the United States that includes granular data on sexual and contraceptive behaviors. We use se…

  • The Social Production and Salience of Young Women’s Desire for Sex

    Open AccessAbigail WeitzmanARTICLESocial Forces2019

    Using data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life Study, a diverse sample of 925 women updated weekly for 2.5 years, I (1) describe how desire for sex varies across and within women during the transition to adulthood; (2) explore how desire corresponds with women's social circumstances and experiences; and (3) assess the relationship between desire for sex, sexual activity, and contraceptive use. The strength of young women's desire is he…

  • Sexual Concurrency and Contraceptive Use Among Young Adult Women

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, J S Barber et al.ARTICLEDemography2019Cited by: 3References: 72

    Leveraging 2.5 years of weekly data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life Study, we investigate the relationship between young women’s sexual concurrency and their contraceptive behavior. Specifically, we (1) examine whether young women changed their contraceptive use when switching from one to multiple concurrent sexual partners in the same week; (2) explore the uniformity of contraceptive responses to concurrency across relationship co…

  • Child Sex Composition, Parental Sex Preferences, and Marital Outcomes

    Open AccessE Smith-Greenaway, Emily Smith‐greenaway et al.ARTICLEJournal of Marriage and the Family2019References: 68

    ObjectiveThe authors study matrilineal settings in rural Malawi, a southeast African country, to assess if women experience better marital outcomes in the presence of daughters and if so whether daughter preference plays a role.BackgroundA provocative finding in family sociology is that couples with sons experience better marital outcomes relative to those with daughters. Sociologists contend that these marital benefits are attributable to the ge…

  • Does Increasing Women's Education Reduce Their Risk of Intimate Partner Violence? Evidence From an Education Policy Reform

    Open AccessAbigail WeitzmanARTICLECriminology2018Cited by: 16References: 72

    Although scholars have employed rigorous causal methods to examine the relationship between education and crime, few of them have taken a causal approach to the study of education and intimate partner violence (IPV) specifically. From a social causation perspective, improving women's education should protect them from violence, yet from a social selection perspective, education could proxy for unobserved factors that explain negative associations…

  • The effects of women's education on maternal health

    Open AccessAbigail WeitzmanARTICLESocial Science & Medicine2017Cited by: 15References: 39

  • Women's Reproductive Intentions and Behaviors during the Zika Epidemic in Brazil

    Open AccessL J Marteleto, Abigail Weitzman et al.ARTICLEPopulation and Development Review2017Cited by: 23References: 60

  • Desire for and to Avoid Pregnancy During the Transition to Adulthood

    Open AccessAbigail Weitzman, J S Barber et al.ARTICLEJournal of Marriage and the Family2017Cited by: 16References: 38

    Unintended pregnancies disproportionately occur among teenage women, yet little is known about the determinants of pregnancy desire among this group. The authors use a comprehensive baseline survey and data on pregnancy desires to investigate which unmarried 18- to 20-year-old women want a pregnancy, want to avoid pregnancy, and report consistent pregnancy desire and disinclination. Variables that positively predict pregnancy desire generally neg…

  • Household sanitation facilities and women’s risk of non-partner sexual violence in India

    Open AccessApoorva Jadhav, Abigail Weitzman et al.ARTICLEBMC Public Health2016

    Our findings provide empirical evidence that lacking household sanitation is associated with higher risk of NPSV