The research project WomEmpower, The Causal Effect of Motherhood, Gender Norms, and Cash Transfers to Women on Intimate Partner Violence funded by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) and led by Professor Núria Rodríguez-Planas is recruiting up to two postdoctoral researchers with a PhD in Economics. The candidates should have a strong research record, with a focus on quantitative methods and a background in labor and/or health economics, social norms and behavioral decisions, and applied econometrics. Candidates from the broader social sciences with outstanding training and experience in quantitative social sciences and research interests in the fields mentioned above will also be considered. The workplace is at the Department of Economics of the School of Economics and Business at the University of Barcelona.

This is a one-year position starting as early as September 2025 with the possibility to extend it to a total of three years based on performance. This postdoc does not involve teaching and the salary conditions are competitive, especially for the Spanish labor market and living conditions (annual salary of 43,000 euros before taxes. Note that this is the salary the postdoc will earn before taxes, yet after the employer has already paid social security and other benefits. The postdoc cost to the employer is 60,000 euros). Benefits include paid annual leave, social insurance (including healthcare), flexible working hours, funds to attend workshops or seminars, and collecting large amounts of research data in the framework of the project.

The successful applicants will join a team producing cutting-edge research on applied economics, domestic violence, and crime regularly publishing their work in top international journals. They will work directly with Núria Rodríguez-Planas.

The research team includes senior researchers from the fields of Economics of Crime (Daniel Montolio), Health and Labor Economics (Judit Vall), Economic Geography and Public Economics (Elisabet Viladecans), and Political Economy (Pilar Sorribes). In addition, the research team has the following collaborators: Dan Anderberg (Royal Holloway, University of London), Sanna Bergvall (Gothenburg University), Resul Cesur (University of Connecticut), Jeffrey Grogger (University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy), Helmut Rainer (Universidad of Munich and Ifo Institute), Yolanda Rebollo-Sanz (Universidad Pablo Olavide), Jennifer Roff (City University of New York, CUNY), and David Simon (University of Connecticut).

Furthermore, the Department has a strong team of quantitative and rigorous researchers producing evidence-based research that guides public policy in the fields of Economics of Education, Health Economics, Labor Market, and Security Policies, including (in addition to the researchers mentioned above) Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela, Andreu Arenas, Anastasia Terskaya, and Cristina Belles-Obrero, among others.

The University of Barcelona has consistently achieved leading positions in numerous academic rankings in the fields of Economics, Social Sciences, and overall, with a strong commitment to excellence in research. It enjoys a long tradition of teaching, offering both undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs in the fields of Economics and Business. In this framework, the UB School of Economics provides an important platform for research and graduate education in Economics.

Your profile:

• PhD in Economics or a related field when starting the contract

• Strong research record, with a focus on empirical methods

• Proficiency in programming languages (R, Stata, Julia, Python)

• Strong communication skills, ability to integrate in and contribute to teamwork, high reliability, attention to detail,
  eagerness to learn, pro-active and responsible attitude, intellectual independence

• Excellent command of English (knowledge of Spanish or Catalan is not necessary)

Application instructions:

If interested email PI at ieb.calls@ub.edu to submit their applications. We will start looking at applications in January 2025 until positions are filled.

Submitted applications must include:

• Motivation letter describing the applicant’s own research interests and how their research experience
  fits within the WomEmpower project

• Full CV

• Two writing samples (articles, thesis chapters or manuscripts)

• Three reference letters

Email inquiries should be directed to: nrodriguezplanas@gmail.com

WomEmpower project summary:

One in three women in the EU-28 countries has experienced physical and/or sexual violence since age 15, with the perpetrator often her (ex-)partner. The consequences of violence against women are devastating not only for the health, productivity, and employment of the women but also for the health and development of their children. Ending gender-based and domestic violence is one of society’s greatest challenges and a top priority of the European Commission as reflected in its Gender Equality Strategy 2020-25. The question is how?

While we know a lot about the factors, costs, and consequences associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, social work, public health, and medicine, the evidence on what factors causally mitigate or exacerbate IPV is scarce, especially in high-income countries. Furthermore, most studies focus on groups of women who have either been victimized or are at high risk of victimization.

Combining population-based data from a wide variety of sources (hospital records; police records; face-to-face survey interviews) with quantitative methods drawn from economics, WomEmpower proposes to estimate the causal impact of (1) motherhood, (2) gender norms, and (3) labor market policies targeted to low-income workers on IPV. Crucially, the project will identify the mechanisms driving IPV in the EU, as well as the population subgroups most at risk of victimization. Furthermore, WomEmpower will study how structural inequalities (poverty, immigrant status, race, lack of education/services) in the EU shape the risk of victimization, as well as how women's intersectionalities (racism, adultism, ableism, heteronormativity) impact their risk of victimization.

The project adopts a comprehensive ecological framework that recognizes that there are many factors linked to IPV at the personal, interpersonal, community, and societal levels. The project is interdisciplinary because it tackles a major public health topic using quantitative methods from economics and testing a variety of hypotheses from multiple disciplines including sociology psychology, public health, gender studies, and medicine.

The objective of the project is to produce evidence-based research that will be fundamental to guide effective policymaking that prevents and eradicates domestic violence in the EU.