Research

From joint to individual: The distributional and labour supply effect of tax individualisation in Ireland, with Karina Doorley (ESRI), and Dora Tuda (ESRI) (under review)

This paper examines the distributional and labour supply effects of moving from joint to fully individualised income taxation in Ireland. The current partially joint system benefits married couples but discourages labour market participation of secondary earners, most often women. Using the microsimulation model SWITCH linked to a structural discrete choice labour supply model, we account for childcare costs and intra-household substitution effects. Our results show that tax individualisation increases married women’s labour supply, slightly reduces men’s hours, and enhances women’s economic independence through higher relative income and bargaining power. A robustness check contrasts a gender-based model with an earnership-based approach, allowing us to isolate behavioural responses to financial incentives from broader gendered constraints. This provides new evidence on the institutional and structural barriers shaping women’s economic autonomy. 

Reallocating the Clock: How public services are reshaping women's time use in Europe, with Frecheville, R. (under review)

This paper analyses how public services shape women’s time allocation between paid and unpaid work across Europe. Using the newly developed Public Services Availability Database (PSAD), which harmonises data on childcare, schools, hospitals, and long-term care at the NUTS-2 level in 450 regions, we link regional service provision with individual time use data from the European Quality of Life Surveys. Our results show that childcare and long-term care services reduce women’s unpaid work, while schools and hospitals increase labour market participation, particularly among older and less-educated women. At the same time, schools and hospitals are also associated with higher unpaid work, suggesting that public services may reallocate rather than diminish domestic responsibilities. Heterogeneity analysis reveals unequal impacts, such as a “Matthew effect” in long-term care. Overall, our study highlights the complex and multifaceted ways in which welfare state services affect gendered time allocation and women’s economic independence.