Rate My Professor Arthur Sakamoto

Arthur Sakamoto is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Hong Kong Baptist University since 2023. He also serves as Acting Director of the Academy of Geography, Sociology and International Studies. Sakamoto earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988, M.A. in Sociology from the same institution in 1985, and B.A. in Economics and Sociology from Harvard University in 1981. Before joining Hong Kong Baptist University, he was Cornerstone Faculty Fellow Professor and Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University from 2017 to 2022 and 2013 to 2017, respectively. From 1989 to 2013, he advanced from Assistant Professor to Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Sakamoto's research specializations include social stratification and inequality, racial and ethnic relations, demography, economic sociology, and East Asian societies. He has authored numerous publications on intergenerational mobility, socioeconomic attainments of Asian Americans, earnings inequality, and labor market dynamics. Key works include “Open-Population Inference in Research on Intergenerational Mobility: An Investigation of the Underrepresentation of the Second Generation” in International Migration Review (2022, with Deirdre Bloome et al.), “The Prevalence of Hardship by Race and Ethnicity in the United States, 1992-2019” in Population Research and Policy Review (2022, with John Iceland), “Comparing the Effects of Class Origins versus Race in the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty” in Social Sciences (2022, with Li Hsu and Mary Jalufka), and “Deconstructing ‘Hyper-Selectivity:’ Are the Socioeconomic Attainments of Second-Generation Asian Americans Only Due to Their Class Background?” in Chinese Journal of Sociology (2021, with Sharron Xuanren Wang). He guest-edited the special issue “Occupation, Stratification and Inequality” for Research in Social Stratification and Mobility (2020). Sakamoto received the 2011 Outstanding Article Award from the American Sociological Association’s Inequality, Poverty and Mobility section for “Is Rising Earnings Inequality Associated with Increased Exploitation? Evidence for Manufacturing Industries in the U.S., 1971-1996” (with ChangHwan Kim). He has held grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Spencer Foundation, and served on editorial boards including American Sociological Review (1995-2003, 2006-2008, 2024-2026) and Social Problems (2025-2027). His scholarship has garnered over 4,500 citations.