Biography
Douglas Steven Massey (Olympia, Washington, USA, 5th October 1952) received his BA in Sociology, Psychology, and Spanish from Western Washington University in 1974. He subsequently earned his MA in 1977 and his PhD in Sociology in 1978, both from Princeton University. He began his teaching career at this institution, where he is currently Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs. He has also served as director of the Office of Population Research and the Population Studies Program at the same university.
Recognized for his multidisciplinary approach, Massey has made significant contributions in areas such as international migration, residential segregation and social stratification. According to experts, his work has been fundamental in understanding the dynamics of international migration and urban segregation, combining academic rigour with an accessible approach that has influenced both academia and public policymaking.
Recognized for his multidisciplinary approach, Massey has made significant contributions in areas such as international migration, residential segregation and social stratification. According to experts, his work has been fundamental in understanding the dynamics of international migration and urban segregation, combining academic rigour with an accessible approach that has influenced both academia and public policymaking. He is co-founder and co-director of research projects such as the Mexican Migration Project and the Latin American Migration Project, in collaboration with Jorge Durand, which have provided valuable data on migration patterns in Latin America. Throughout his career, he has held prominent positions in various academic organizations. He served as president of the Population Association of America in 1996, of the American Sociological Association from 2000 to 2001, and of the American Academy of Political and Social Science from 2006 to 2015.
His most influential publications include American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (1993), co-written with Nancy A. Denton, which analyses racial segregation in the United States, and Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (2002), in collaboration with Jorge Durand and Nolan Malone, which examines US immigration policies in the context of globalization. In 2017, he published Comprender las Migraciones Internacionales. Teorías, prácticas y políticas migratorias (Understanding International Migration: Theory, Practice and Policies), written in Spanish. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous peer-reviewed journals and is currently co-editor of the Annual Review of Sociology.
Acknowledgements
Holder of honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Ohio State University, Massey is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Academia Europaea, among other institutions. Throughout his career he has received numerous awards, including the Special Recognition in Education from the World Cultural Council (Mexico, 2008), the Award for the Public Understanding of Sociology (USA, 2012), the Paul Davidoff Book Award (USA, 2013), the Henry Allen Moe Prize in the Humanities (USA, 2017), and the Bronislaw Malinowski Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology, received jointly with Jorge Durand for their collaborative work on the Mexican Migration Project (USA, 2018).
Douglas Massey | The Future of the Migratory Species | Congreso Futura 2019
Minutes of the Jury
At its meeting in Oviedo, the Jury for the 2025 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, made up of Javier Echeverría Ezponda, Marta Elvira Rojo, Juan Pablo Fusi Aizpurúa, Pablo Hernández de Cos, Silvia Iranzo Gutiérrez, Araceli Mangas Martín, Ricardo Martí Fluxá, Manuel Menéndez Menéndez, Jaime Montalvo Correa, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, María Dolores Puga González and Astrid Wagner, chaired by Emilio Lamo de Espinosa Michels de Champourcin and with Jaime Pérez Renovales acting as secretary, has decided to grant the 2025 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences to American sociologist and demographer Douglas Massey.
Starting out from the conception of man as a “migratory species”, throughout his distinguished research career Douglas Massey has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of international migration and its consequences on urban segregation and social stratification, processes accentuated by globalizing dynamics.
With a broad impact across the social sciences, Massey has constructed a theoretical model of the most demanding academic rigour, enabling us to interpret contemporary societies –in which migration has become a structural factor– from a calm, rational and empathetic point of view.
Oviedo, 21st May 2025
Credits
© Fundación Princesa de Asturias
Images:
- © Douglas Massey
- © Kamchatka
- Mapa América © Miss Irine
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