She served as president of the Population Association of America in 1997[1][2] and was best known for her research on the relationship between changes in fertility patterns and social changes in gender roles.
[3][4][5] Mason grew up in a poor family in New York and attended Reed College on a scholarship, majoring in Sociology.
[2] In 1973, Mason moved to the University of Michigan, where she became a Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Population Studies Center.
[2] In the second half of the twentieth century, birth rates were a central concern of demographers, who uncritically attributed fertility to women.
[1][2] She devoted her presidential address to improving demographic understandings of fertility transition (long-term declines in average family size) by taking a perceptual, interactive approach.