About

Shawn Bauldry is an academic faculty member at Purdue University, where he joined the faculty in 2016. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and an M.S. in Statistics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, earned in 2012 and 2011 respectively. His research focuses on quantitative methods and statistics, with a particular emphasis on the development of structural equation models, which are widely applicable in the social sciences. Additionally, his work in medical sociology and stratification and inequality examines the relationships between socioeconomic resources and health over the life course and across multiple generations. He is also a Faculty Associate at the Center on Aging and the Life Course Resources.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Law
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Social connection can mitigate depression risk

  PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · 2026-03-10

  preprintOpen access

  Enhancing social connection is a widely implementable target to reduce depression risk. Yet, little is known about whether social connection can meaningfully offset more immutable forms of risk. We use causal inference to estimate how disparities in depression by sex, race, family socioeconomic position, and genetic liability can be reduced following a hypothetical social connection intervention. In a U.S. representative sample of ~10,000 people, we demonstrate that social connection mitigates sex, genetic, and socioeconomic disparities in depression symptoms, which persisted over a decade later. However, reductions were not consistent when stratified by sex and racial groups. These observational data showcase how social paradigms could mitigate even genetic and structural risks, and highlight the need for intersectionally informed mental health interventions and policy.

  Publisher

• Social connection can mitigate depression risk

  2026-03-10

  articleOpen access

  Enhancing social connection is a widely implementable target to reduce depression risk. Yet,little is known about whether social connection can meaningfully offset more immutableforms of risk. We use causal inference to estimate how disparities in depression by sex,race, family socioeconomic position, and genetic liability can be reduced following ahypothetical social connection intervention. In a U.S. representative sample of ~10,000people, we demonstrate that social connection mitigates sex, genetic, and socioeconomicdisparities in depression symptoms, which persisted over a decade later. However,reductions were not consistent when stratified by sex and racial groups. These observationaldata showcase how social paradigms could mitigate even genetic and structural risks, andhighlight the need for intersectionally informed mental health interventions and policy.

  PublisherDOI

• Patterns and Consequences of Adult Grandchildren’s Perceptions of Grandmothers' Differential Treatment on Well-Being

  Research on Aging · 2026-03-11

  articleSenior author

  This paper expands research on within-family differences in later-life families by examining patterns and consequences of adult children's perceptions of their grandmothers' differential treatment. Mixed-methods data were collected from 221 adult grandchildren nested within 81 families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Multilevel linear regression and qualitative analyses were used to examine patterns, consequences, and explanations of grandmothers' differential treatment. Perceiving oneself as the grandchild to whom grandmothers were the most emotionally close was associated with higher depressive symptoms among granddaughters, but not grandsons. Qualitative analyses suggested that higher depressive symptoms among favored granddaughters resulted from serving as their grandmothers' emotional caregivers, which heightened granddaughters' sense of responsibility and exposure to age-related challenges their grandmothers faced. This paper contributes to the literature on intergenerational ties and well-being by demonstrating that perceptions of grandmothers' differential treatment are common and identifying conditions under which such perceptions affect adult grandchildren's depressive symptoms.

  PublisherDOI

• Dual Functional Recovery: The Contrasting Roles of Volunteering and Helping Behaviors

  Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The concept of dual functionality integrates both physical and cognitive function – two important and interrelated domains for older adult health and well-being – and represents the absence of impairment in either domain. The loss of dual function presents a significant barrier to independent living; however, this loss may not be permanent. As such, guided by social integration theory, this study investigates the effect of two prosocial behaviors – formal volunteering and informal helping – on the recovery of dual function. We use nationally representative panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (2004-2016, N = 6,110), entropy balancing weights, and discrete time hazard models. After adjusting for selection and study covariates, volunteering was associated with lowered odds of recovery while helping was associated with increased odds of recovery (Odds Ratio (OR)=0.863 [95% CI: 0.754, 0.987]; OR = 1.120 [95% CI: 1.010, 1.243], respectively). Additionally, we found that age at loss of dual function moderated the effect of volunteering and helping (p < 0.05). Specifically, there is a significant difference in the effects of volunteering and helping when dual function is lost at younger ages. Findings underscore the complexity of recovery from impairment, the role prosocial behaviors may play in this process for older adults, and provide implications for health policy and interventions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• In-person social isolation in the age of smartphones: Examining age, period, cohort effects by gender

  PLoS ONE · 2025-09-29 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  OBJECTIVES: The rise of smartphones and social media is widely seen as a pivotal societal shift that has fueled what the U.S. Surgeon General in 2023 described as "our epidemic of loneliness and isolation." The evidence for an increase in social isolation, however, has not accounted for age and cohort effects - i.e., variation in time spent alone over the life course and across generations. This study leverages the latest breakthrough in Age-Period-Cohort (APC) modeling to disentangle age-specific effects, societal changes, and generational shifts that contribute to social isolation in the era of smartphones. METHODS: We analyze data from the 2003-2022 waves of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), focusing on time spent alone in nonwork activities among individuals aged 15-79 (N = 240,576). Using a recent breakthrough in APC modeling, we identify net effects of age, period, and cohort separately for men and women. RESULTS: Social isolation has increased over the past two decades for both women and men, with a notable acceleration in the mid-2010s, suggesting that societal shifts during this period may have intensified isolation. However, age and cohort effects play a much larger role in explaining the social isolation crisis of the 21st century. Gender differences are substantial, particularly in cohort trajectories and in age patterns after age 70. DISCUSSION: While smartphone-era societal shifts have contributed to a general rise in isolation, aging and generational differences explain more of the variation. Public health efforts should prioritize mitigating isolation among older adults or earlier cohorts, with attention to gender-specific patterns.

  PublisherDOI

• Are Relationship Patterns Between Parents and Adult Children Associated With ADL Disability Risk in Later Life?

  Journal of Aging and Health · 2025-05-19

  articleOpen access

  Background This study examined whether patterns of relationship quality between parents and adult children were associated with the onset of ADL disability in later life. Research Design and Methods Using data from the Health and Retirement Study ( N = 8,101), we studied whether support, strain, and patterns of relationships between parents and adult children were related to age of onset of ADL disability among parents. Results Greater support from adult children (based on parental report) was associated with later onset of ADL disability, and greater social strain was associated with earlier onset of disability. Compared to high-quality relationships, adverse, indifferent, and ambivalent relationships were associated with an earlier onset of ADL disability over time. Discussion It is important to acknowledge the complexity of relationships between parents and their adult children to understand how patterns of quality within these relationships influence ADL functioning in later life among parents.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Perceptions of Grandmothers’ Favoritism: Consequences for Adult Grandchildren’s Well-Being

  Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The consequences of maternal differential treatment on adult children’s psychological well-being are well-documented. However, no consideration has been given to grandmothers’ differentiation among their adult grandchildren and its consequences for the well-being of members of the youngest generation. Drawing from theories of socioemotional selectivity and gender-role socialization, this study uses mixed-methods data collected from 221 adult grandchildren nested within 81 families from the Within-Family Differences Study-III to investigate the association between adult grandchildren’s perceptions of grandmothers’ favoritism and psychological well-being. Forty-nine (28.5%) of the respondents perceived themselves as the grandchildren to whom their grandmothers were most emotionally close. Multilevel regression analyses suggest that perceiving oneself as the grandchild to whom grandmothers were the most emotionally close was associated with higher depressive symptoms among granddaughters, but not grandsons. Qualitative analyses revealed that these gender differences emerged from variations in the meaning granddaughters and grandsons ascribed to being the favored grandchild. In particular, granddaughters were much more likely than grandsons to explain their role as their grandmothers’ emotional caregiver—a role that has been found to contribute to adult daughters’ distress when their mothers face age-related challenges in later life. These findings contribute to the literature on differential treatment in intergenerational families by demonstrating that perceptions of grandmothers’ emotional closeness are both common and consequential for the psychological well-being of adult granddaughters.

  PublisherDOI

• Nonlinear Autoregressive Latent Trajectory Models

  UNC Libraries · 2025-01-10

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Autoregressive latent trajectory (ALT) models combine features of latent growth curve models and autoregressive models into a single modeling framework. The development of ALT models has focused primarily on models with linear growth components, but some social processes follow nonlinear trajectories. Although it is straightforward to extend ALT models to allow for some forms of nonlinear trajectories, the identification status of such models, approaches to comparing them with alternative models, and the interpretation of parameters have not been systematically assessed. In this paper we focus on two forms of nonlinear autoregressive latent trajectory (NLALT) models. The first form allows for a quadratic growth trajectory, a popular form of nonlinear latent growth curve models. The second form derives from latent basis models, or freed loading models, that allow for arbitrary growth processes. We discuss details concerning parameterization, model identification, estimation, and testing for the two forms of NLALT models. We include a simulation study that illustrates potential biases that may arise from fitting alternative models to data derived from an autoregressive process and individual-specific nonlinear trajectories. In addition, we include an extended empirical example modeling growth trajectories of weight from birth through age 2.

  PublisherDOI

• tetrad: A Set of Stata Commands for Confirmatory Tetrad Analysis

  UNC Libraries · 2024-07-20

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article provides a brief overview of Confirmatory Tetrad Analysis (CTA) and presents a new set of Stata commands for conducting CTA with supporting examples. The Stata command, tetrad, allows researchers to use modelimplied vanishing tetrads to test the overall fit of structural equation models (SEMs) with continuous endogenous variables and the relative fit of two SEMs with continuous endogenous variables that are tetrad-nested. An extension of the command, tetrad_matrix, allows researchers to conduct CTA using a sample covariance matrix as input rather than relying on raw data. In addition, researchers can use the tetrad_matrix command to input a polychoric correlation matrix and conduct CTA for SEMs involving dichotomous, ordinal, or censored outcomes. An additional extension of the command, tetrad_bootstrap, provides a bootstrapped p-value for the chi-square test statistic. By drawing on Stata's recently developed suite of commands for structural equation modeling, researchers can integrate CTA with data preparation, likelihood ratio tests for model fit, and the estimation of model parameters in a single statistical software package.

  PublisherDOI

• Twentieth-Century Change in the Educational Costs of Adolescent Childbearing

  American Journal of Sociology · 2024-02-02 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Although studies observe heterogeneity in the effects of adolescent childbearing on schooling, little is currently known about when this pattern emerged or how it changed across cohorts of women who lived in distinct periods of US history. This article identifies the potential origins of effect heterogeneity in the educational costs of adolescent childbearing and extends recent advances in causal inference to detect group differences in heterogeneity. The analysis applies this approach to four cohorts of women from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) who entered adolescence before, during, and after expansive economic, demographic, and cultural change in the twentieth century. Results suggest that the educational costs of adolescent childbearing, as well as heterogeneity in those costs, increased for women in the latter half of the twentieth century, especially for millennial women born 1980-84. The authors conclude that midcentury social changes fundamentally altered the educational costs of adolescent childbearing for women.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael J. Shanahan

  17 shared

• Kenneth A. Bollen

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  14 shared

• Lilly Shanahan

  Youth Development

  10 shared

• Jason A. Freeman

  Towson University

  10 shared

• Madison R Sauerteig-Rolston

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  9 shared

• Joseph D. Wolfe

  University of Alabama at Birmingham

  9 shared

• Ashton M. Verdery

  Pennsylvania State University

  9 shared

• William C. Cockerham

  9 shared

Education

• PhD, Sociology

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  2012