Hien Nguyen

“My scholarship is informed by the belief that sex and gender are material relations integrally connected to labor, production, consumption, and the accumulation and circulation of capital. The establishment and naturalization of binary cisgender and compulsive heterosexuality – alongside racialized violence, slavery, and genocidal dispossession of Indigenous people – was foundational to the development of capitalism and the modern nation-state.

Far from being historical, these forces continue to be key institutions contributing to social and economic conditions of our present moment – a deeply unequal present where ordinary people find it nearly impossible to thrive and to transform their lives for the better, let alone sexual and gender minorities whose life is often drowned in cycles of precarity and crisis. Through my research, I hope to contribute to the collective effort of progressive activists and thinkers, whose relentless pushing is our hope for changes in this overwhelming and increasingly unliveable world.”

Personal Website

https://duchiennguyen.com

Course Areas

Microeconomics, macroeconomics, Marxist political economy, feminist economics

• Ph.D., Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2024
• M.A., Economics, University of Toronto, 2016
• B.A. (Hon.), Economics, Trent University, 2015

• Political economy of gender and sexuality
• LGBTQ+ Economic discrimination and inequality
• Feminist, queer, and trans Marxism
• Political economy of platform capitalism and generative AI
• Interdisciplinary research methods in Economics

• “Gender‑Based Discrimination in Care Service Occupations: Result from an Online Experiment.” 2024. Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy. 
• “Access to Gender-Affirming Care and Transgender Mental Health: Evidence from Medicaid Coverage.” 2024. American Journal of Health Economics, 10 (2): 162-181. (Co-authored with Samuel Mann and Travis Campbell)
• “Access to Gender-Affirming Care and Transgender Mental Health: Evidence from Medicaid Coverage.” 2024. American Journal of Health Economics, 10 (2): 162-181. (Co-authored with Samuel Mann and Travis Campbell)
• “Hormone Therapy, Suicidal Risk, and Transgender Youth in the U.S.” 2023. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 113: 551–555. (Co-authored with Samuel Mann, Travis Campbell, and Yana van der Muelen Rodgers)
• “The Political Economy of Heteronormativity.” 2023. Review of Radical Political Economics, 55 (1): 112-131.