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My research studies economic and social inequalities, focusing on how early-life conditions, labor markets, and family policies shape long-run outcomes. Using large administrative datasets and quasi-experimental methods, I examine gender differences in earnings, caregiving, and fertility decisions.
My work combines analyses of labor market sorting and family formation to understand why gender gaps persist even in settings with generous welfare policies. I have also worked at the intersection of public economics and gender inequality, with research on political representation and tax policy.
Work in Progress
Work in Progress
Abstract: We study which characteristics differentiate the small group of women who reach the top of the earnings distribution by their mid-30s. Using Norwegian administrative registers for cohorts 1983–1988, we define “top-10” as women in the top decile of the annual earnings distribution at age 35. We construct sequential matched control samples (5-nearest neighbors) that cumulatively equalize: (i) family background (paternal income rank, parental education, birth region); (ii) high-school GPA; (iii) tertiary education (degree level and field); (iv) fertility (age at first birth and number of children); and (v) first-job characteristics (occupation, industry, firm size, sector, location, entry wage). We then estimate age-specific differences in earnings profiles from 20–40 for the different matched control groups. The sequence quantifies how much of the earnings gap between the top decile and the rest is associated with background and measured talent, how much is accounted for by education, and what remains after equalizing fertility and first-job placement. We replicate the decomposition for men and compare.
Income Gap: Top 10% (Elite) vs Bottom 90%
How fathers take leave: gender norms or economic incentives?
Abstract: Gender gaps in caregiving persist even where policy incentives for equal parenting are strong. This paper asks whether gender norms shape paternity leave behavior, and whether their effect holds independently of economic incentives. Using Norwegian administrative data, I identify the role of gender norms by exploiting within-school, across-cohort variation in peers’ maternal employment. Women exposed to a higher share of classmates with full-time working mothers are more likely to work full-time after childbirth. Their partners are more likely to take the full paternity quota and less likely to concentrate leave during summers and holidays, a pattern I call strategic leave timing. The effect holds across the within-couple income distribution, ruling out an interpretation based on economic incentives alone. The transmission is asymmetric: men’s own peer exposure has no effect on their leave behavior. Norms shape fathers’ caregiving through women rather than directly through men, operating via both partner selection and within-couple allocation of care.
Publications (before PhD)
Publications (before PhD)
Brusini, I.M. (2022) Rethinking Political Representation: A new measurement of gender equality in political representation in the European Union.
The Public Sphere: Journal of Public Policy, 10(1). https://psj.lse.ac.uk/articles/112
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