Her research primarily focuses on gender in the context of romantic and sexual relationships, particularly in partner selection and in negotiated outcomes between partners. Other research addresses how intimate relationships reflect, perpetuate, and potentially alter broad societal patterns of gender, class, age, and racial inequality. Recent articles address gender differences in sexual strategies in dating relationships (Biodemography and Social Biology, 2011) and the gendered double standard of aging (Population and Development Review, 2009). Ongoing projects include investigating the romantic cost of working in a gender-atypical occupation, challenging the “trophy wife” stereotype that women commonly trade their beauty for men’s money, and examining the social structural causes of shifts in self-reported sexual identity.