Research interests: fertility intentions and behaviors, marriage and family change, African demography.

Current research: Hayford is currently conducting NIH-funded research on race-ethnic differences in unintended childbearing in the United States and on community influences on female genital cutting in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, she is engaged in a large cross-national data collection project studying the impact of parental migration on children's socioemotional development, educational outcomes, and family formation behaviors in Mexico, Mozambique, and Nepal.