Safoura Moeeni
Assistant Professor
Department of Economics
University of Manitoba
Safoura.Moeeni [at] umanitoba[dot] ca
Phone: +1 (204)474-8568 (office)
Address:
University of Manitoba, Department of Economics, Fletcher Argue Building (547), 15 Chancellors Circle, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3T 5V5
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Manitoba (MB, Canada). I received my Ph.D. in Economics in 2019 from the University of Calgary (AB, Canada), where I was awarded for best dissertation. Before joining UoM, I was an Assistant Professor at the University of Regina (SK, Canada). I also spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow in 2020 at Mount Allison University (NB, Canada).
Research Interests
I am an empirical microeconomist with interests in Labor Economics, Economics of the Family, and Development Economics. My research is on the interactive effects of changes in labor markets and households' decisions with a focus on the gender dimension of these changes. In terms of methodology, I use both designed-based and model-based approaches. In particular, in my most recent project, I combine these two approaches of empirical economics.
More about my research here.
A copy of my CV is available here.
Upcoming conferences and seminars (2025):
February 26: Iran Economic Forum Winter Meeting
March 13-15: Annual Conference of Association of Education Finance & Policy
June 27-29: SOLE
"The Effects of Reduced Educational Opportunites on Labor Market Outcomes" with Feng Wei (submitted) [Paper]
"Beyond Choice: How Labor Market Barriers Shape Women's Work Preferences and Life Cycle Decisions", Draft and slides available upon request
"The Effects of Labor Market Opportunities on Education: The Case of a Female Hiring Ceiling in Iran" with Atsuko Tanaka, Journal of Public Economics, Volume 224, August 2023 [Paper]
"The Intergenerational Effects of Economic Sanctions", The World Bank Economic Review, Volume 36, Issue 2: 269–304, 2022 [Paper] [WP Version]
(Awarded the fourth prize of the 2021 Best Young-Researcher Award, Canadian Labour Economics Forum)
"Married Women’s Labor Force Participation and Intra-Household Bargaining Power", Empirical Economics, 60:1411–1448, 2021 [Paper]
(Awarded the 2015 James D. Gaisford Research Prize for the best second-year paper, University of Calgary)
Policy Reports and Papers:
"Iran’s Economic Forecasts: 2013-2017 Outlook" with Dr. Hassan Dargahi, In: "Determinants of Iran’s Economy: A Medium-run Analysis", Masoud Nili, et al., Donya-e-Eqtesad Press, (2013) 187-222.
"Total Factor Productivity Assessment of the Industrial Sector" (Macroeconomic Approach) with Dr. Hassan Dargahi, In: "International Competitiveness of Iranian Industrial Sector", Masoud Nili, et al., TCCIM Press, (2012) 295-312.
PhD Thesis:
Essays on Family Economics and Human Capital Development, Supervisors: Atsuko Tanaka and Alexander Whalley, committee members: Pamela Campa and Eugene Choo, external examiner: Christin Neill, University of Calgary, June 2019
(Awarded the 2018 Dissertation Award, University of Calgary; 2020 CAGS/UMI Nominee by the Department of Economics)
"Households’ Decision on Parental Leave and Gender Pay Gap"
Summary: Despite a remarkable convergence in the economic roles of men and women, the labour market gender gaps (e.g., gender wage gap) have been a persistent phenomenon in most countries. Canada has one of the biggest gender wage gaps among 43 OECD developed countries. This gap narrowed down in the period between the 1970s and early 1990s, then plateaued around 20% since. The factors used to explain the gender gap have lost their significance e.g., women are now more educated than men. Moreover, about two thirds of this persistent plateaued gender gap remains unexplained i.e., women and men are paid differently even when they have similar education, work experience, and work in the same occupation and similar types of firms. One possible cause of gender inequality in payment is motherhood known as child penalty that can occur through labour supply and demand channels. The mechanisms of the negative effect of children on women’s earnings are not limited to after childbirth. On the supply side of the labour market, even before childbirth women may choose family friendly but lower paying jobs. On the demand side of the labour market, the prospect of childbirth could incline firms to consider female workers with weaker job attachment which results in lower wages offer. While parental benefit policies as a remedy to child penalty enabled women to combine careers and motherhood, they were not successful to close the gender gap in labour market outcomes. In this study, I focus on fertility and parental leave decisions as an explanation for the remaining gender pay gap in Canada. This research has two primary objectives: (1) to evaluate the mechanisms underlying households’ and firms’ decisions by taking into account their interactive effects (2) to design labour and family policies that can target the gender issue at its sources. I quantify both labour supply and demand channels and interactive effects to provide a better understanding of what causes the child penalty in Canada. Extending recent studies, this research project shed light on the sources of the gender gap on both sides of the labour market, and highlight the interactive effects. The mechanisms that are studied in this paper provide directions on policy design. I evaluate several counterfactual family and labour policies.
"Optimal Child Benefit Policy: Evidence from Canada"
Summary: In addition to a reduction in overall birth rates in Canada, highly educated and high earning women are also having fewer children because of their higher opportunity costs. Starting July 2016 the Universal Child Care Benefit has been replaced by Canada Child Benefit policy in which the benefit depends on the number of children and adjusted family net income such as high earning women will receive less child benefit. I structurally estimate a model for fertility and combine the model with the exogenous variation caused by 2016 Canada Child Benefit policy to investigate the effects of alternative child benefit policies. The goal is to create a model which allows policy-makers to identify different type of women and design specific interventions to efficiently target them.
"Do Partial Unemployment Insurance Programs Work? Evidence from the Canadian Working While on Claim Pilot Project" with Adam Lavecchia, Miguel Olivo-Villabrille, and Arezou Zaresani (Funding: SSHRC IDG, 54,740 CAD, 2 years)
Summary: The risk of becoming unemployed and losing earnings is a major source of income uncertainty and welfare loss. Although the positive effects of unemployment insurance (UI) policies on individuals’ welfare are well-known, the optimal design of UI is a hotly debated issue as there is an insurance-incentive tradeoff. In this study, we evaluate the mechanisms underlying claimants’ labour supply decisions visàvis the incentives implicitly embedded into the claim rules of UI programs. In addition, we provide guidance on the design of more efficient UI programs by considering their welfare effects. We rely on variations in the rules of Canada’s Working While on Claim (WWC) to conduct the study. WWC allows a claimant to earn money by working up to a threshold of earnings, above which their UI benefits begin to be deducted dollar for dollar. Between 2005 and 2016, the government tested several rule changes regarding the earnings threshold to assess whether different rules on claims can encourage claimants to work more while on the program. We evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the WWC program. The result of this analysis provides directions on designing effective policies that can simultaneously reduce the welfare loss of unemployment and increase labour supply and earnings of claimants. We will give specific recommendations to set the level of the exemption threshold, and the rate at which benefits are reduced in order to achieve a particular policy goal.
"Sibling Sex Composition and STEM Major Choice: Evidence from the Middle East" with Umut Oguzoglu
"The Most effective Policy to Improve Health Equality"
Summary: Despite growing attention to health equality on national and global policy agendas, few countries have successfully reduced health inequalities. This study examines the effectiveness of two key policies—cash transfer programs and health insurance—on health inequality. These policies influence household decisions through different mechanisms. Cash transfers provide households with greater flexibility to allocate funds according to their specific needs, but targeting these programs can be challenging. For example, younger recipients may choose to invest the money elsewhere. In contrast, health insurance does not offer direct cash benefits; instead, it provides access to health services either for free or at a reduced cost, encouraging individuals to utilize services they might otherwise forgo. However, this approach limits personal choice. The overall impact of these policies also depends on how they affect prices and the income elasticity of health spending.