In 1941, he obtained a tenure-track appointment at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), making him the second person to be named to the faculty of the department of sociology and anthropology there.
In 1959, he left the faculty of UCLA to become a professor at the University of Texas-Austin (UT-Austin), where he helped establish the Population Research Center.
In 1971, he became a professor of sociology at the Institute of Advanced Studies at The Australian National University, where he continued to teach until 1976.
While on the faculty of UT-Austin, he received a one-year fellowship in the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1962-3).
He was a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the Royal Anthropological Institute, and received an honorary degree (DSc) from Boston University.