Mara Getz Sheftel
she/her
Mara Getz Sheftel is an Instructor at the Rutgers University
Institute for Health, Health Policy and Aging and in the Rutgers School of Public Health. She is part of the scientific leadership team of the New Jersey Population Health Cohort Study (NJHealth) and the Center for State Health Policy (CSHP). Mara was previously a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Population Research Institute at Pennsylvania State University working in the Crossnational Aging Research Lab (CARL). She has a PhD in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center.
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Mara is a demographer and sociologist who leverages life course and health disparities frameworks to study how large-scale social changes intersect with global population aging to impact older adult health in vulnerable populations. Her research is published in Demography, Population Research & Policy Review, the Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, and Socius, among other peer-reviewed journals.
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With a background in mentorship and service-learning, Mara is an experienced and enthusiastic educator.
Research
As a population scientist focused on population aging, Mara's research investigates three societal changes that intersect with aging to impact health:
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​(1) Patterns of international migration, including the aging-in-place of immigrants, that have given rise to nativity and legal status based health stratification;
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(2) Increasing labor market precarity and high rates of occupational segregation based on race, ethnicity, and nativity that have long term implications for older adult health disparities;
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(3) Shifting family structures driven by demographic changes in mortality, fertility, marriage and divorce that have eroded older adult kinship networks and compounded risks of loneliness and health.
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Mara comes to this field with an interdisciplinary background spanning Demography, Sociology, Public Health, Public Policy and International Studies. Mara's research provides a scientific evidence base for policy and targeted interventions advancing population health, especially in vulnerable communities, in the US and internationally.
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Mara's research has been published in Demography, Population Research & Policy Review, the Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Social Science & Medicine - Population Health, and Socius among other peer-reviewed publications. Her research has been continuously funded by NIH since she graduated in 2021. Mara regularly presents her work at the Population Association of America (PAA), American Sociological Association (ASA), and the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meetings.
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Select Publications*
Van Hook, Jennifer and Mara Getz Sheftel. Forthcoming. “The Growth and the Diversity of Older Undocumented Immigrants in the US.” Demography.
Sheftel, Mara Getz, Noreen Goldman, Anne R. Pebley, Boriana Pratt, and Sung S. Park. 2025. “Life course exposure to work strain and cognitive disparities by race and ethnicity.” Social Science & Medicine – Population Health, 29 (1010765) 1-11. [link to paper]
Sheftel, Mara Getz, Rachel Margolis and Ashton Verdery. 2024. "Loneliness Trajectories and Chronic Loneliness Around the World.” The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 79(8), 1-6. [link to paper]
Sheftel, Mara Getz. 2024. "Return Migration and Disability by Life Course Stage of Return: Evidence Against the Salmon Bias." The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 79(3), 1-11 [link to paper]
Sheftel, Mara Getz, Rachel Margolis and Ashton Verdery. 2024. "Life Events and Loneliness Transitions Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults Around the World.” The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 79(1), 1-10. [link to paper]
Margolis, Rachel, Mara Getz Sheftel, Haowei Wang, Raeven Chandler, Lauren Newmyer, and Ashton Verdery. 2024. “Older Adults’ Descendants and Family Networks in the Context of Global Educational Expansion.” Population Development Review, 51(1), 213-256. [link to paper]
Sheftel, Mara Getz. 2023. "Immigrant wealth stratification and return migration: The case of Mexican immigrants in the US during the 20th Century." Demography 60(3):809–835. [link to paper]
*See Mara's CV for a full list of publications
Graduate Instruction
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Multivariate Statistics
Teaching Assistant to Prof. Juan Battle, Spring 2016
Introduction to Statistics
Teaching Assistant to Prof. Jeremy Porter, Fall 2015
Contact
mara.sheftel (at) rutgers (dot) edu @MaraSheftel
