J. Jill Suitor

parent-adult child relations, family caregiving, interpersonal relations & well-being

Dr. Jill Suitor (Ph.D., SUNY-Stony Brook, 1985) is a Professor of Sociology and a Faculty Associate of the Center on Aging and the Life Course.  She joined the faculty at Purdue University in 2004. Her research focuses the effects of status transitions on interpersonal relations, particularly between parents and adult children.  Since 2001, she has been conducting an NIH-supported panel study of the causes and consequences of within-family differences and parental favoritism in later-life families.  Her work has been supported by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Spencer Foundation, and has resulted in the publication of more than 90 journal articles and book chapters.  She has been a member of the editorial boards of Social Forces, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, and Gender & Society. She has also served as a member of the NIH Study Section on Personality, Social Psychology, and Interpersonal processes and is an elected Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She regularly teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on family relationships across the life course with particular emphasis on later-life families, as well as a Research Seminar on Aging and the Life Course.