Publications
The Hub for Equal Representation's publications showcase the breadth and impact of our research, bringing together evidence, insight, and analysis on the causes and consequences of gender inequality.
Through academic papers, policy reports, briefs, and commentary, we contribute to public debate and support evidence-based approaches to creating more equal workplaces and societies.
Featured publications
All publications
Journal Article
Oxford Review of Economic Policy:
A new model of parental time investments: A paradigm shift for addressing gender inequality in the labor market.
This paper introduces a new framework for understanding the persistence of the motherhood penalty by emphasizing the role of on-call care. Using a pseudo-panel event study based on the 2003?2022 American Time Use Survey ...Read more...
Pilar Cuevas-Ruiz, Jose Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal, Sveva Manfredi and Almudena Sevilla
2 March 2026
External publication
The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century:
Labour markets and gender inequality (chapter)
Wide disparities persist in the wages and economic power of men and women in nearly all countries. Women still make different educational decisions to men, are under-represented in high-paying jobs, and suffer the majori...Read more...
Oriana Bandiera and Barbara Petrongolo
16 October 2025
Journal Article
Review of Economic Studies:
The Child Penalty Atlas
This paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on microdata from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. ...Read more...
Henrik Kleven, Camille Landais and Gabriel Leite-Mariante
1 October 2025
Journal Article
Journal of Labor Economics:
The Search for Good Jobs: Evidence from a Six-Year Field Experiment in Uganda
There are 420 million young people in Africa today, and only one in three has a regular salaried job. We study how two common labor market interventions-vocational training and matching-affect the job search behavior of ...Read more...
Oriana Bandiera, Vittorio Bassi, Robin Burgess, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman and Anna Vitali
1 July 2025
External publication
NBER Working Paper 34051:
The Illusion of Time: Gender Gaps in Job Search and Employment
Even in traditional societies, men and women graduate from college at increasingly similar rates. Yet their paths diverge upon labor market entry: men work while most women stay home. What drives this divergence? Trackin...Read more...
Oriana Bandiera, Amen Jalal and Nina Roussille
1 June 2025
Journal Article
LSE Public Policy Review:
Explaining Variation in Child Penalties: The Role of Gender Norms and Policies
This paper contributes to understanding global variation in child and marriage penalties by focusing on the role of patriarchal control, gender norms, and public policies. We introduce a new measure of gender norms, the ...Read more...
Camille Landais, Gabriel Leite-Mariante and Sveva Manfredi
14 March 2025
Journal Article
Oxford Open Economics:
Women and men at work
We explore gender inequalities in paid and unpaid work with a focus on the UK. The average working-age woman in the UK earned 40% less than her male counterpart in 2019; sizeable gender gaps in participation, hours worke...Read more...
Alison Andrew, Oriana Bandiera, Monica Costa Dias and Camille Landais
17 July 2024
External publication
IZA Discussion Paper No. 17103:
Gender Gaps across the Spectrum of Development: Local Talent and Firm Productivity
We ask whether the gendered division of work affects firm productivity across the spectrum of economic development. Personnel records of over 100,000 individuals hired by a global firm that operates in 100 countries reve...Read more...
Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Virginia Minni and Victor Quintas-Martinez
1 June 2024
Blog
VoxTalks Economics Podcast:
Women are from Mars too
Are men from Mars, and women from Venus? If so, policies that seek to close the gender gap by equalising opportunities are unlikely to succeed. A recent paper finds that, contrary to popular belief, women and men?s trait...Read more...
Oriana Bandiera and Michelle Rao
8 March 2024
Journal Article
The Quarterly Journal of Economics:
Worker Beliefs About Outside Options
Standard labor market models assume that workers hold accurate beliefs about the external wage distribution, and hence their outside options with other employers. We test this assumption by comparing German workers? beli...Read more...
Simon Jager, Christopher Roth, Nina Roussille and Benjamin Schoefer
10 January 2024
External publication
IFS Deaton Review:
The careers and time use of mothers and fathers
The large decline in women?s paid work after childbirth cannot be explained by couples prioritising the paid work of the higher-wage parents. ...Read more...
Alison Andrew, Oriana Bandiera, Monica Costa Dias and Camille Landais
12 March 2021