Publications
Gender Mix Prescription: Is it the Cure for Job Satisfaction and Retention? (with M. Repetto), Labour Economics, 2025. [Link]
This paper investigates the effects of gender composition within general practices on overall job satisfaction, its associated lower-level domains, service quality and retention rates of general practitioners (GPs). Using data from the nationally representative Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) panel, we estimate an individual fixed-effects model and address potential endogeneity in several ways. We show that an increase in the female share of GPs within a practice positively influences overall job satisfaction and various well-being components, with female GPs driving the effects. However, increasing the female share negatively affects several domains of job satisfaction if it reduces gender diversity, highlighting the importance of maintaining a balanced gender composition within practices. To obtain an equivalent effect on overall job satisfaction, gross annual earnings would need to increase by approximately AU$406,400. Additionally, our findings show positive effects on retention intentions. Potential mechanisms include a greater understanding of work-life balance among colleagues, stronger workplace support, and reduced job-related stress.
Flexible Working and Well-being: Evidence from the UK, Journal of Demographic Economics, 2024, 90(4), 589-625. [Link]
Recent technological advancements have facilitated alternative work arrangements. This paper investigates how flextime and working from home relate to workers’ well-being using longitudinal data drawn from the Understanding Society study for the UK. It accounts for individual, job, and family characteristics while controlling for individual fixed effects. Additionally, it employs the Oster test to examine the potential influence of unobserved variables. Results show that men experience improved job satisfaction and mental health with flextime arrangements, while women predominantly benefit in terms of job satisfaction. Additionally, women adopting remote work report heightened satisfaction with job and life, and better mental health, whereas men primarily report greater job satisfaction. Interestingly, flextime effects are stronger for men, while working from home is more beneficial for women. Some heterogeneous effects are also found by parental status, age, and income groups.
Sorting, Social Comparison and Women’s Job Satisfaction (with L. Cappellari & A. Gamba), Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, (1) 2020. [Link]
Using linked employer-employee data for the UK we address competing explanations for gender gaps in job satisfaction. Previous studies have rationalized the puzzling greater satisfaction of women either by pointing out gender differences in competitive attitudes, or through differences in sorting across jobs and industries. Our data allow us to test both explanations within a unified framework. The employer-employee structure of the data enables us to control for workplace unobserved heterogeneity that drives sorting. Moreover, we exploit information on workplace average wages to investigate workers’ attitudes through the framework of social comparison within the firm. We show that while social comparison matters empirically, gender differences in social comparison are not enough to account for job satisfaction gaps. Instead, controlling for workplace heterogeneity resolves the puzzle, lending support to the sorting hypothesis.
Work in progress
Paternity Leave and Fathers’ Leave-Taking Behaviour: A Shift in Fatherhood or Just Time Off? [Last version will be available soon]
Riskonnected: Social Media and Puberty in the UK (with M. Della Giusta and S. Mendolia)
Pension Reforms and Labour Supply in Europe (with J. Bacheron and F. Devicienti)
University accommodation and cross-discipline peer effects (with A. Aparicio Fenoll, L. Favero and I. Malisan) - Data collection in progress
Chapters in reports and books
COVID-19 and Changes in the Household: Fertility, Divorce and Domestic Violence (with M. Di Tommaso & S. Mendolia), In: Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, pp. 1-15. Springer Nature, 2024
Donne e lavoro, una paradossale felicità (with L. Cappellari & A. Gamba), Vita e Pensiero, (2) 2020
Rapporto Lombardia 2020, Goal 4 (quality education) and Goal 8 (decent work and economic growth), Polis-Lombardia