Research and Teaching Interests

Dr. Kail joined the Georgia State University department of sociology in 2012 after finishing his doctoral work at Florida State University and spending two years as a postdoctoral scholar at the Duke University Population Research Institute.

One line of Dr. Kail’s research focuses on the relationships between public and private benefits, work, unpaid work, and health throughout the life course. Recent publications have focused on the relationships between insurance benefits and postretirement employment, and the relationship between postretirement employment and unpaid productive activities after leaving full time work. As second line of Dr. Kail’s research explores state experimentation with welfare policies and the subsequent impact of these policies on the expansion of benefits. Recent publications in this area have focused on explaining means-tested benefit generosity during a period of retrenchment, and the impact of state experimentation on insurance coverage.

Dr. Kail’s teaching interests include aging and the life course, welfare state/social policy, work, health, research methods, and statistics.

Curriculum Vitae