My research examines how neighbourhood contexts shape individuals' outcomes across education, health, well-being, and socio-political attitudes over the life course. Relying on robust identification strategies - including pseudo-randomized neighbourhood allocation and instrumental variables - I overall find that living in disadvantaged contexts has wide-ranging negative consequences, stressing the importance of place-based policies aimed at reducing spatial inequalities.
Some publication on this topic:
Bonomi Bezzo, F., Silva, L., and Van Ham, M. 2021. The combined effect of Covid-19 and neighbourhood deprivation on two dimensions of subjective well-being: Empirical evidence from England. PloS one, 16(7)
I investigate how changes in the ethnic and social composition of local environments shape attitudes towards outgroups, tolerance, and social cohesion. Drawing on social contact and in-group/out-group theories, I examine how exposure to contextual diversity, in combination with individual characteristics, influences orientations towards immigration, ethnic minorities, and broader processes of social integration.
Some publication on this topic:
Silva, L., Bonomi Bezzo, F., Laurence, J., Schmid, K. 2023. Effects of absolute levels of neighbourhood ethnic diversity vs. changes in neighbourhood diversity on prejudice: moderation by individual differences in personality. Social Science Research.
I analyse how social class position and class consciousness shape attitudes towards inequality, redistribution, and migration. Drawing on original and comparative survey data, I examine how objective class location and subjective class identification combine to produce distinct political orientations. A second strand of this work takes a multigenerational perspective, tracing how family class dynasties leave lasting imprints on how individuals understand their place in society and what they expect from it.
I examine how the unequal and often chronic lack of access to basic public services and physical infrastructure across localities shapes both material circumstances and political orientations. Where the state is absent or unreliable in its provision, infrastructural deprivation structures how individuals perceive their relationship to political institutions, treating the built environment not merely as a backdrop to social life, but as a politically constitutive force in its own right.
Some publication on this topic:
Bonomi Bezzo, F., Silva, L. 2026. Infrastructural access and racial inequalities as determinants of income dynamics in South Africa. Social Science Research.