Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana is an assistant professor of sociology at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Rucks-Ahidiana is a scholar of race and ethnicity, urban sociology, and culture whose research explores how culture contributes to the racial wealth gap; how race informs when, where, and how gentrification unfolds; and how race informs public discourse about social problems. Her methodological approach combines skills from her BS in environmental science and policy from the University of Maryland, MPA from New York University, and PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, with her work experience in evaluation policy research at MDRC and the Community College Research Center to investigate racial inequality through quantitative, qualitative, and spatial data analyses. Her research has been published in peer-review journals, including Social Problems, Sociological Methods and Research, City & Community,Urban Studies, and Sociological Inquiry.

Research Summary

For One Million Black Women, Rucks-Ahidiana will extend her research on the racial wealth gap to investigate the contributing factors to Black women’s wealth holdings. In particular, she will use the Survey of Consumer Finances to investigate how intergenerational (e.g., inheritance), structural (e.g., earnings), and cultural (e.g., ideas about appropriate financial behavior) factors contribute to race-gender differences in net worth, assets, and debt holdings. The project will add to our understanding of how each factor contributes to Black women’s lower wealth holdings and will help to identify policy interventions that target the major contributing factors.