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Ann Ratner Miller (1921 – February 28, 2006) was an American sociologist and demographer in the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, described as "a pioneer in the study of human migration and patterns of labor force participation," "part of the first generation of demographers that assembled and analyzed census data to undertake the first systematic study of internal migration within the United States."

Education and early career

Ann Rachel Ratner earned a bachelor's degree in 1943 in sociology from Bryn Mawr College. Later in the 1940s, she worked with Gladys L. Palmer in the Department of Industrial Research at the Wharton School; with Palmer she published the 1949 research report Industrial and occupational trends in national employment, 1910-1940, 1910-1948. In the 1950s, she also worked as a statistician for the United States Census Bureau.

She married Ervin Miller, and completed her Ph.D. in sociology in 1962 at the University of Pennsylvania.

Her dissertation, supervised by Dorothy Swaine Thomas, was State Labor Force Trends and Differentials in the United States from 1870 to 1950.

Later career

Miller continued working as a researcher in the Population Studies Center of the Wharton School from 1960 to 1971; she was a "founding member" of the center, and remained associated with it for the rest of her career. In 1971, she was appointed as a research associate professor of sociology in the Wharton School, and in 1972, she was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. By 1980, she had become a regular-rank full professor, and the chair of the Committee on Occupational Classification and Analysis of the National Research Council Assembly of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Miller served as editor-in-chief of the journal Demography from 1985 to 1987. She retired in 1987.

Equal pay study

In 1981 Miller chaired a committee of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, appointed by President Jimmy Carter, that found that women are "systematically underpaid", both by being concentrated in lower-paid positions and by being paid less than men for comparable positions. The committee suggested that a notion of "comparable worth", used to adjudicate legal cases for gender discrimination, could improve the situation, but would not remove disparities caused by discrimination in hiring. Miller knew much of this already from personal experience; her obituary for the Population Association of America (of which she was first vice president in 1980) writes "Most of her career was spent at a time when it was very difficult for women to receive their due as full participants in science and the academy."

References

1. ^ Recommendations for Academic Appointments and Promotions for the period from June 7, 1971 through July 27, 1971 (PDF), University of Pennsylvania, September 24, 1971, archived from the original (PDF) on January 13, 2016, retrieved November 23, 2017
2. ^ "Ann (Ratner) Miller", Paid death notices, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2, 2006, retrieved 2017-11-23
3. ^ "Ann R. Miller" (PDF), Obituary, PAA Affairs, Population Association of America: 14, Summer 2006
4. Bryn Mawr College Calendar, 1943-1944, Bryn Mawr College, April 1943, p. 147
5. Heneman, Herbert G. Jr. (1950), Minnesota manpower mobilities: Patterns of manpower mobility, Minneapolis, 1948, Bulletin of the Industrial Relations Center, vol. 10, University of Minnesota, p. 31, One of the most comprehensive aggregative studies is Gladys L. Palmer and Ann Ratner, Industrial and Occupational Trends in National Employment, 1910-1940, 1910-1948
6. Alumni by Graduating Cohort, University of Pennsylvania Population Studies Center
7. ASA Fellows list, American Statistical Association, archived from the original on 2017-12-01, retrieved 2017-11-15
8. Recommendations for Academic Appointments and Promotions for the period from October 22, 1980 through November 21, 1980 (PDF), University of Pennsylvania, December 18, 1980, archived from the original (PDF) on January 13, 2016, retrieved November 23, 2017
9. Assembly of Behavioral and Social Sciences Committee on Occupational Classification and Analysis (1980), Miller, Ann Ratner (ed.), Work, Jobs, and Occupations: A Critical Review of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, National Research Council Publications, vol. 3093, National Academies, p. iii, ISBN 9780309030939
10. "PAA DEMOGRAPHY editors", PAA 2017 Annual Meeting Program, Population Association of America, 2017, p. 22
11. Shribman, David (September 2, 1981), "Study finds women are systematically underpaid", The New York Times
12. Sawyer, Kathy (September 2, 1981), "Bias on women's pay found, but no policy shift is asked", The Washington Post

• 1921 births
• 2006 deaths
• American sociologists
• American women sociologists
• Bryn Mawr College alumni
• United States Census Bureau people
• University of Pennsylvania alumni
• Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania faculty
• Fellows of the American Statistical Association
• 20th-century American women
• 20th-century American people
• 21st-century American women